Animal Farm - Chapter 5

NB – The end of the first half of Chapter 5 is the most crucial turning point of all. At this point evil
becomes prevalent. This is a time of crisis and tests of loyalty of the animals.
Prevalent – occurring more often.

Summary of Chapter 5
As winter approaches, Mollie, the vain little mare, *defects to the side of the humans. The animals plan
the next season’s work, with Napoleon and Snowball in continual disagreement. Snowball creates a plan
to build a windmill which could produce enough power and energy to do much of the animal’s work. He
is on the point of winning the animals’ vote for the project, when Napoleon signals his bodyguard of nine
fierce dogs to chase Snowball off the farm. Napoleon assumes sole command, abolishes meetings and
later claims the idea of the windmill as his own.
Defect – in this context the word defect means to leave one’s home country in a way the home country
claims to be illegal. The person is often seen as a traitor. Generally, it involves abandoning a person,
cause, or doctrine to which one is bound by some tie.

Analysis
The defection of Mollie marks her as an even greater materialist than she had appeared to be
earlier in the novel. The fact that she is bribed away from Animal Farm with sugar and ribbons
— two items that Snowball condemned as unnecessary for liberty in Chapter 2 — shows her
desire for luxury without making the necessary sacrifices to obtain it. She is a defector from the
politics of Animal Farm and is never mentioned by the other animals, who find her abandonment
of Animalism and the rebellion shameful. Despite their implied condemnation, however, the
pigeons do report that "She appeared to be enjoying herself" — much more so than the animals
who remain on the farm. Mollie may be politically shallow in the eyes of her former comrades,
but she does manage to secure herself a much more comfortable life, which raises the question of
whether one is better off living well with one's enemies or suffering with one's comrades. The
novel eventually suggests that Mollie did, in fact, make a wise decision in leaving Animal Farm,
although (to be fair) she did not do so because of any political or moral motives.
NB: George Orwell uses Mollie’s character to represent the wealthy who abandoned Russia to
secure their personal safety in other countries.
At this point, the pigs have gained more power: Earlier, they were "supervisors," but now they
decide "all questions of farm policy." While these decisions still need to be ratified by the other
animals, Orwell suggests that the pigs are gaining ground at a slow but steady rate. But with the
"bitterly hard weather" that arrives that winter, so do "bitterly hard" debates increase between
Snowball and Napoleon. Actually, "debate" is hardly the correct term, since only Snowball
attempts to logically persuade sway the other animals — Napoleon uses a number of what
Squealer will later call "tactics" to get his way. For example, Napoleon spends time during the
week training the sheep to break into their "Four legs good, two legs bad" bleating during
"crucial moments" in Snowball's speeches; packing the meetings with his own unwitting
supporters is Napoleon's calculated strategy here. His unleashing of the nine dogs later in the
chapter is Napoleon's ultimate "debating technique": Violence, is how Napoleon settles
disagreements.

The windmill itself is a symbol of technological progress. Snowball wants it to be built

because he thinks it will bring to the farm a degree of self-sufficiency — which matches up with
the principles of Animalism. Napoleon, however, cares nothing for the windmill (and even
urinates on Snowball's plans for it) because he is only concerned with establishing his
*totalitarian rule. At the debate on the windmill, Snowball argues that after it is built, the
animals will only need to work three days a week, while Napoleon argues that "if they wasted
time on the windmill they would all starve to death."
Totalitarian - a form of government that attempts to assert total control over the lives of its citizens

Commentary
In the debate over the windmill, the rival leaders act as the reader would expect them to: Snowball is
persuasive; Napoleon says little. Only when it looks as if words have won the day does Napoleon
summon his dogs and successfully puts an end to the threat to power from Snowball.
The speed with which Napoleon takes matters into his own hands shows the care he has taken to for this
moment. It is the combination his planning and the animals’ surprise that enables him to seize power with
almost no resistance at all, The definite plans he announces and the follow-up propagandizing by
Squealer complete the takeover of power.
What has happened, although the animals do not realize this until much later is establishment of a
dictatorship. The use of a personal bodyguard is one of the first signs. Another is the change of routine;
for example, the abolishing of the open meeting every Sunday morning. Another is the creation of a
(conveniently dead) hero who can be used to give credit to the ruler. Finally, the rival to leadership must
discredited, with fabricated evidence and false arguments that he was an enemy all along.

On one level, Orwell is satirizing the way in which people can be (and often are) deceived when
an individual is bent on using them and manipulating them for his own purposes. As in all such
instances, what appears to be and is quite often contradictory. The disagreements between
Snowball and Napoleon, for instance, are some ways by which the latter waits until the right time
to attempt his seizure of power. The masses – the animals – know nothing of this and are not
even sure they are being used when the moment comes.

Napoleon’s takeover of Animal Farm is a clear sign that events are moving to the stage of falling
after a rise to a kind of peak. The windmill, for example, was proposed by Snowball as a
pinnacle of success for the community of Animal Farm. True, the windmill will be built and
rebuilt but for different reasons. Small details also suggest the way in which events will now
move to what they were in the beginning or perhaps worse. A new slogan becomes popular:
“Napoleon is always right.” The dogs act toward Napoleon as they acted toward Jones or would
act toward any human being. Of course, the fact that the animals do not read the foreshadowing
of their fate under Napoleon continues to be one of the large ironies of the novel.