BookThe animals of Manor Farm are starved by their drunken farmer, Mr. Jones. An old boar called Old Major tells them about a dream: a world without humans, where every animal is equal. He dies three days later, but the idea lives on.
Show the full plot (spoilers)
The animals rebel, chase Jones off the farm and rename it Animal Farm. They paint seven commandments on the barn wall, and the most important one is that all animals are equal.
The pigs are the cleverest, so they take charge, led by the idealistic Snowball and the quiet, cunning Napoleon. Boxer, the strongest horse on the farm, works harder than anyone, and his motto is simply: I will work harder.
When Snowball plans a windmill, Napoleon sets nine dogs he secretly raised on him and drives him off the farm for good. From then on everything that goes wrong is Snowball's fault, and animals who confess to helping him are killed. Meanwhile the commandments on the barn quietly change at night.
How it ends
Boxer collapses from overwork, and the pigs say they are sending him to hospital, but the van that takes him belongs to a horse slaughterer, and the pigs spend the money on whisky. Years later the pigs walk on two legs, and the seven commandments become one: all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. In the final scene the animals watch the pigs playing cards with human farmers and can no longer tell which is which.
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