Animal Farm Key Incidents

Key Incident When Napoleon chased Snowball off the farm Before Napoleon could expel Snowball he had to come up with a plan. During this time he sat back and didn’t really expose himself. The reader was surprised as he hadn’t had much involvement in the working of the farm.

This is important to the text as a whole because Napoleon is now able to fully take on the role of leader without any competition Longer working hours Using violence (executions and whips) Breaking commandments These could be a paragraph each. You need to continuously refer to the fact that the key incident allowed all of these things to happen as Snowball isn’t there to stop them.

Longer Working Hours ‘All that year the animals worked like slaves’ This shows that now that Snowball is gone Napoleon can control the animals in any way he wishes and make them work to their breaking point.

Using Violence ‘The execution went on, until there was a pile or corpse lying before Napoleon’s feet’ Napoleon hopes that the animals will be more obedient to him so he can control them through fear. ‘He carried a whip in his trotter’ This symbolises the point that the pigs are better than other animals and are I a class of their own. The whips symbolised violence and slavery.

Breaking Commandments

Overall, the absence of Snowball allows the theme of power and corruption to develop and contributes to the overall failure of the rebellion.

How to Answer a ‘Key Incident’ Question Say what the key incident is Paragraph 1 - explain the key incident in detail Every following paragraph - show how the key incident has had an impact on further events Also should explain the wider importance of the key incident and what it started