Animal Farm recap

The mistreated animals of an English farm, inspired by the dying boar Old Major, drive out their neglectful owner and take the farm for themselves, vowing that all animals are equal. The clever pigs take the lead, and two of them, the inventive Snowball and the ruthless Napoleon, become rivals until Napoleon uses a pack of dogs he has secretly raised to seize sole power and expel Snowball. Under Napoleon the pigs steadily grant themselves more privileges while the other animals, above all the loyal cart-horse Boxer, work themselves to exhaustion. Napoleon rules by fear, staging false confessions and executions and blaming every failure on Snowball, while Squealer's propaganda quietly rewrites the founding Commandments to excuse each new betrayal. When Boxer can work no more, he is sold to a slaughterer. Years later the pigs walk upright, do business with humans, and reduce their code to the claim that some animals are more equal than others, until the other animals can no longer tell them apart from the men they once rebelled against.

On an English farm run by the careless, often drunken Mr. Jones, an old and respected boar called Old Major gathers the animals and tells them that their hard, short lives are the fault of the humans who live off their work. He urges them to dream of a rebellion and teaches them a rousing anthem before he dies. The cleverest animals, the pigs, work his ideas into a system of belief called Animalism, led by two young boars, the forceful Napoleon and the inventive Snowball, aided by the persuasive Squealer. When Jones neglects to feed them, the animals suddenly drive him and his men off the farm and take it for their own, renaming it Animal Farm. They set down Seven Commandments on the barn wall, the chief being that all animals are equal, and resolve to run the farm themselves. Almost at once, though, the pigs quietly reserve the cows' milk for their own use.

The animals bring in a good harvest, working harder and more willingly than they ever did for Jones, with the mighty cart-horse Boxer laboring hardest of all. The pigs take charge of organizing and planning, and Squealer explains why the milk and the windfall apples must be kept for the pigs alone. When Jones and other men try to retake the farm, the animals rout them in what becomes known as the Battle of the Cowshed, where Snowball proves a brave leader. But rivalry grows between Snowball and Napoleon, who oppose each other on almost everything, above all on Snowball's grand plan to build a windmill. At the meeting where the animals are to vote, Napoleon suddenly unleashes nine fierce dogs, which he has secretly raised from puppies, and they drive Snowball off the farm for good. Napoleon takes sole command, abolishes the animals' debates, and soon announces that the windmill will be built after all, claiming the idea as his own.

Under Napoleon the animals toil like slaves on the windmill, their lives growing harder while the pigs take on more privileges. Napoleon begins trading with neighboring humans through a go-between, and the pigs move into the farmhouse and sleep in its beds, one of the Commandments having quietly changed to allow it. A storm topples the half-built windmill, and Napoleon blames the exiled Snowball, casting him as a hidden traitor behind every setback. A brutal winter and food shortages follow. When some hens resist an order to give up their eggs, their rebellion is crushed. Napoleon then stages a terrifying purge: animals are made to confess to plotting with Snowball and are killed on the spot by the dogs, and the anthem taught by Old Major is banned. The windmill is rebuilt, only for a neighboring farmer, Frederick, to cheat Napoleon and then attack and blow it up in a bloody fight. Afterward the pigs discover whisky, and another Commandment is quietly revised.

Boxer, still laboring devotedly on the rebuilt windmill, injures himself and grows weaker until he collapses. Napoleon arranges for him to be sold to a horse slaughterer, while Squealer assures the grieving animals that Boxer died peacefully in a hospital; the pigs use the money from his sale to buy more whisky. Years pass, and few of the animals who remember the Rebellion are still alive. The farm has grown richer, but only the pigs and dogs prosper, while the others work and go hungry as before. The pigs learn to walk on their hind legs and carry whips, and the Seven Commandments are painted over and replaced by a single maxim, that all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. Napoleon renames the place Manor Farm again and hosts a banquet for the neighboring human farmers. Watching through the window as pigs and men drink and quarrel together, the other animals find they can no longer tell the pigs from the humans they had once overthrown.

The revolution has come full circle into a new tyranny. Napoleon rules Animal Farm as an absolute dictator, protected by his dogs and served by Squealer's lies, while the working animals are as poor, hungry, and exploited as they were under the humans. Boxer, who trusted the pigs to the last, has been sold to a horse slaughterer and his death disguised as a peaceful passing. The idealistic Seven Commandments have been erased and replaced by the single principle that all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. The pigs now wear clothes, walk on two legs, carry whips, and trade and dine with the neighboring farmers. In the closing scene Napoleon hosts the humans at a banquet, announces that the farm will be called Manor Farm once more, and falls to quarreling with a guest over a game of cards. The other animals, peering in from outside, look from the pigs to the men and back again and can see no difference between them. The ruling pigs have become indistinguishable from the oppressors the animals rose up to overthrow.