LitSocName: ______

Animal Farm

Questions to the Reading (Study Guide)

Instructions: Read each chapter carefully and then respond to the questions as completely as possible. In other words, cite page numbers, include quotations when applicable, develop your thoughts on the topic. An answer of just a few words will be considered incomplete, which earns you only 50 points. Missed responses will be considered an inadequate effort and earn you zero points.

Chapter 1

  1. What is significant about the way the animals arrange themselves as they gather around Old Major? How might this foreshadow future roles or events?
  2. List Old Major’s grievances. How might we identify these grievances in terms of larger social issues, like poverty, or racism, or gender?
  3. What is Old Major’s “call to action”? What is he trying to persuade the animals to do?
  4. What commandments does Old Major give to the animals? In what way could each of them be considered a vice?
  5. What is ironic about the circumstance that occurs directly following Old Major’s claim that “All animals are equal”? What might this circumstance foreshadow about events to come?

Chapter 2

  1. Characterize each of the three preeminent pigs on the farm. What are their main traits? What do their respective names suggest about each one? What role will they likely play in the development of the new world order on the farm?
  2. Snowball:
  3. Main character traits with examples from text:
  4. Name meaning and connotations:
  5. Likely role:
  6. Napoleon:
  7. Main character traits with examples from text:
  8. Name meaning and connotations:
  9. Likely role:
  10. Squealer:
  11. Main character traits with examples from text:
  12. Name meaning and connotations:
  13. Likely role:
  1. Soon, we will be discussing the issue of gender representations in media, and applying the gender lens. As a brief intro to that lens, please consider: In Animal Farm, which gender holds the power? How are females portrayed?
  2. What does Orwell criticize through Moses’ description of Sugarcandy Mountain? How is a belief in Sugarcandy Mountain potentially harmful to the animals?
  3. While all of the commandments are important, which seems to be the most important?

Chapter 3

  1. How is the final commandment already beginning to fail in this chapter?
  2. What qualities do the pigs have that the other animals do not?
  3. Also, what type of animal are pigs? Do they do hard labor or produce anything, other than their own flesh? (Eww. Not a vegan, but still—eww.) What commentary is Orwell therefore making about leaders by using pigs as their allegorical counterpart?
  4. Which rhetorical appeals does Squealer use in his “milk and apples” speech? What types of propaganda? Is he being truthful?

Chapter 4

  1. Why do the humans attack Animal Farm?
  2. How do Boxer’s and Snowball’s perspectives differ on the killing of a human?

Chapter 5

  1. How are Snowball and Napoleon characterized in this chapter?
  2. According to Snowball, what will the windmill provide for the animals?
  3. Why is Benjamin, the mule, such a bummer? What’s his point, and why does he feel the way he does?
  4. Through what means does Napoleon take control? How might we argue that the other animals are complicit in this sudden turn of events?
  5. How does Squealer “explain” Napoleon’s actions?

Chapter 6

  1. What’s Squealer’s explanation for engaging in trade with the other farms, and for the pigs moving into the farm house?
  2. What does Squealer do to the commandments to make his assertions “true”?
  3. Why turn Snowball into a scapegoat? Why don’t any of the animals think about Napoleon’s accusations logically? I mean, it took all of the animals two years to build the windmill, even with Boxer’s indefatigability (look it up) and sheer brawny power. How could one little pig knock it over, and why does he just happen to wait for the night with hurricane force winds?

Chapter 7

  1. Which animal did Napoleon’s dogs attack without warning?
  2. Why was the slaughter of the animals who confessed to being traitors so horrifying to the other animals? Why didn’t they rebel against this?
  3. Why do you think the “traitors” confess when, after the first killing, they must have known what would happen?
  4. Why do the pigs ban “Beasts of England”?

Chapter 8

  1. What have the pigs been doing to the Commandments? How do they get away with this?
  2. How does Napoleon further separate himself from the animals, even the other pigs?
  3. Contrast “Beasts of England” with “Comrade Napoleon.” How are the diction, tone, and essential meaning different in the two songs?
  4. During the battle with Fredericks and his men, how is Napoleon shown to be a less effective leader than Snowball? How, nevertheless, does Napoleon turn events in his favor?
  5. What makes the pigs sick?

Chapter 9

  1. Why do the animals believe that, in spite of the hard work and little food, life is better for them now than when Jones was master of the farm? Are they correct?
  2. What happens to Boxer? Once again, how do the pigs spin the truth?

Chapter 10

  1. What happens to the farm over time? How does this ensure that Napoleon will continue to rule the farm?
  2. What do the pigs learn to do?
  3. At the end of the novel, when the animals peek in the farmhouse window, what do they discover about the pigs?