1. Animal Farm
Chapter 6

2. “All that year the animals worked like slaves.”
Irony
What is the irony behind the chapter’s opening line?
“All that year the animals worked like slaves.”
What type of irony is it?
“But they were happy…They did it for the benefit of themselves… not for a pack of idle thieving human beings.”

3. Chapter 6 Key Events #1 Voluntary work on Sundays
If you did not, your food rations were cut
Animals eager to take more work b/c it’s for their own benefit
Hens called upon to give their eggs

4. Chapter 6 Key Events: #1 Cont.
Boxer emerges and the most important animal on the farm
“Nothing could have been achieved without Boxer…” (p67)
He works more than any other animal
Only Benjamin refused to get enthusiastic about the windmill
Represents the people who were cynical and skeptical about the rebellion

5. Chapter 6 Key Events #2 Mr. Whymper-Human solicitor
Used to obtain needed goods
Iron, nails, oil, machinery for the windmill
Caused concern among the animals who believed such actions were a violation of Animalism

6. Allegorical Connections
Agent of the Communist International (Comintern) worked with Russia and the outside world
Mr. Whymper serves the farm while making a profit as well
Napoleon uses him
to spread rumors that
all is still going well

7. Allegorical Connections
Whymper is also an allusion to Westerners that catered to Soviet interests and helped spread the Soviet myth
“There is no famine or actual
starvation nor is there likely
to be.” -- Walter Duranty
New York Times, Nov. 15, 1931
Words spread by journalist
about the state of Soviet Russia
The reality was much different

8. "There is no famine or actual starvation nor is there likely to be
"There is no famine or actual starvation nor is there likely to be.” --New York Times, Nov. 15, 1931, page 1
"Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda.“ --New York Times, August 23, 1933
"Enemies and foreign critics can say what they please. Weaklings and despondents at home may groan under the burden, but the youth and strength of the Russian people is essentially at one with the Kremlin's program, believes it worthwhile and supports it, however hard be the sledding.” --New York Times, December 9, 1932, page 6
"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.” --New York Times, May 14, 1933, page 18
"There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.” --New York Times, March 31, 1933, page 13

9. Walter Duranty
Walter Duranty (1884 – October 3, 1957) was a controversial Liverpool-born British-American journalist who served as the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times from 1922 through 1936.
A series of stories written in 1931 on the Soviet Union won Duranty a Pulitzer Prize.
Duranty has been criticized for his denial of widespread famine
Many years later there were calls to revoke his Pulitzer
The Times acknowledged that his articles constituted “some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper.”

10. Chapter 6 Key Events #2 Cont.
“Never to have dealing with humans”
“Never to engage in trade”
“Never to make use of money”
“All the animals remembered passing such resolutions: or at least they thought that they remembered it.” (p63)
For legs good, two legs bad.

11. Chapter 6 Key Events #2 Cont.
Squealer suggests it’s something that the animals “dreamed”
“Have you any record of such a resolution? Is it written down anywhere?” (p64)
Targets the animals illiteracy

12. “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets”
Chapter 6 Key Events: #3
Pigs now live and sleep in farm house
Commandments changed
“No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets”
Squealer said it was necessary for the pigs who did the brainwork
Uses fear, “Surely none of you wishes to see Jones back?” (p67)

13. Chapter 6 Key Events #4 Storm destroys windmill
It was built with walls too thin
The humans would “meet in the public houses and prove to one another by means of diagrams that the windmill was bound to fall down.” (p65)
Napoleon accuses Snowball
Snowball is given a death sentence

14. Chapter 6 –Analysis Ex: Communist Russia vs. Trotskyism
Elements of Oppression in Action
Overworked working class
Educational psychology says that people who are kept very busy are easily controlled
Rewriting history
Propaganda as a means of control
A common enemy
Ex: Communist Russia vs. Trotskyism
Ex: U.S.A. vs. Communism

15. The Common Enemy

16. Chapter 6 –Analysis The need for a Scapegoat
Many psychologists say humans need something to love and something to hate
It aides in building a group identity– “US”
You can’t know happiness without sadness.
You can’t know YOU without THEM
“..self-definition is impossible without reference to the other.”
It allows us to project our own negative qualities onto others
It aides in building group cohesiveness

17. Chapter 6—Analysis Cont.
Snowball is blamed
Unites the comrades against a common enemy
What is the irony behind this ?

18. Napoleon’s Leadership:
His changes are small and incremental so that there appears to be no change at all
He changes:
The commandment
Their workload
The view of Snowball’s
influence on the farm

19. Emerging Themes
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”