Animal Farm
Animal Farm
Animal Farm
NAPOLEON: My fellow animals - for most of the Spring the pig committee has been reviewing
the Traitor Snowball’s papers and notes, and after drawing up entirely new and better plans, we
have windmill would, indeed, greatly improve our prospects for the future. Therefore, I am
pleased to announce that we will build a windmill on the knoll in the long pasture in order to
generate electricity for Animal Farm.
NAPOLEON: This will mean much harder work for everyone - and stricter food rations because
of it. But I think you’ll agree, the prospect of heated stalls far outweighs the extra sacrifice. It
will take two years to complete the work. Perhaps three.
[Blackout.]
SQUEALER: Napoleon was never opposed to the windmill. That plan Snowball drew on the
floor?
MURIEL: Yes?
SQUEALER: It was stolen from Napoleon's papers. That was his plan. The windmill was
Napoleon’s creation.
SQUEALER: That was Napoleon's cunning – and his tactics. Do you know that word?
MURIEL: No.
SQUEALER Napoleon only seemed to oppose the windmill, simply as a maneuver – a tactic -
to get rid of Snowball - who was really a dangerous character and a bad influence on the younger
female animals. But now that Snowball is out of the way, the windmill can go forward. Tactics.
You see?
SQUEALER: In order to start building we need to bring the limestone rocks at the bottom of the
quarry up to the knoll.
SQUEALER: Yes.
BENJAMIN: They need to go all the way to the top of the knoll –
BENJAMIN: - up there?
MURIEL: How?
SQUEALER: We will carry them in carts – and we have plenty of ropes to lash around them
and pull. Everyone will pitch in. Also – those boulders?
SQUEALER: They will need to be pushed over the side of the quarry so that they will break up
on the rocks below. Then returned in smaller pieces –
SQUEALER: Unless you can stand up on your hind legs and swing a pickax, yes - stupid
donkey.
BOXER: It’s fine. The work will be good for me.
BENJAMIN: Even though the work was very hard that summer, we weren’t badly off, I
suppose. We got less food than in Snowball’s day – but more than we got from Jones.
[Lights shift to the QUARRY. The ANIMALS move rocks and hum– this is the RITUAL OF
ROCKS.]
BOXER: There.
BOXER: I am eleven years’ old, and next year - according to the Retirement Resolution for
Horses – I will retire on pension to the corner of the large pasture. I’d like to see this windmill
done before it’s time.
BOXER: I believe I will be the first. I will receive five pounds of corn a day and, in the winter,
fifteen pounds of hay - with a carrot or an apple every Revolution Day.
BOXER: It will be the first time in my life that I have had a chance to study and improve my
mind. I will devote the rest of my life to learning the whole alphabet.
BENJAMIN There are more important things than knowing how to read.
BOXER: Why have you not retired on pension, Brother? You are beyond the age, aren’t you?
[Blackout.]