Summary

Years pass, and Animal Farm undergoes its final changes. Muriel, Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher are all dead, and Jones dies in an inebriates’ home. Clover is now 14 years old (two years past the retiring age) but has not retired. (No animal ever has.) There are more animals on the farm, and the farm’s boundaries have increased, thanks to the purchase of two of Pilkington’s fields. The second windmill has been completed and is used for milling corn. All the animals continue their lives of hard work and little food — except, of course, for the pigs.

One evening, Clover sees a shocking sight: Squealer walking on his hind legs. Other pigs follow, walking the same way, and Napoleon also emerges from the farmhouse carrying a whip in his trotter. The sheep begin to bleat a new version of their previous slogan: “Four legs good, two legs better!” Clover also notices that the wall on which the Seven Commandments were written has been repainted: Now, the wall simply reads, “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL / BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.” Eventually, all the pigs begin carrying whips and wearing Jones’ clothes.

In the novel’s final scene, a deputation of neighboring farmers are given a tour of the farm, after which they meet in the dining-room of the farmhouse with Napoleon and the other pigs. Mr. Pilkington makes a toast to Animal Farm and its efficiency. Napoleon then offers a speech in which he outlines his new policies: The word “comrade” will be suppressed, there will be no more Sunday meetings, the skull of old Major has been buried, and the farm flag will be changed to a simple field of green. His greatest change in policy, however, is his announcement that Animal Farm will again be called Manor Farm. Soon after Napoleon’s speech, the men and pigs begin playing cards, but a loud quarrel erupts when both Napoleon and Pilkington each try to play the ace of spades. As Clover and the other animals watch the arguments through the dining-room window, they are unable to discriminate between the humans and the pigs.

Analysis

This final chapter depicts the complete transformation (not only in name) from Animal Farm to Manor Farm. There will never be a “retirement home” for old animals (as evidenced by Clover), and the pigs come to resemble their human oppressors to the degree that “it was impossible to say which was which.”

The completion of the second windmill marks not the rebirth of Snowball’s utopian vision, but a further linking of the animals and humans: Used not for a dynamo but instead for milling corn (and thus making money), the windmill’s symbolic meaning has (like everything else) been reversed and corrupted. Animal Farm is now inexorably tied to its human neighbors in terms of commerce and atmosphere.