Animal Farm: Exploring Chapter Five - Monday 8th February 2021

Monday 8th February 2021

         Animal Farm:
     Exploring Chapter Five

Learning Purposes
     • Revisit chapter five of Animal Farm
     • Consider key characters, themes and events within the novella
     • Develop an understanding of Orwell’s intentions

Prior learning:                                         Future learning:
Next slide…                                             Continue to revisit the novella
                                                        whilst focusing on setting,
                                                        characters and themes.

                                                        Develop analytical writing skills
                                                        for Section B.

Starter
Put these events from chapter four in order. The first one has been done for
you.
❑ Mr Jones and his men attack the farm and attempt to take it back.
❑ Snowball sounds the retreat and pulls his forces back to the yard.
1. Animals begin to rebel against humans in other farms across the country.
❑ The men run from the farm, defeated.
❑ The larger animals attack the men. A sheep is killed and Snowball is
  injured.
❑ Snowball, Boxer and the dead sheep receive medals at the sheep’s
  funeral.
❑ The smaller animals, including the birds and the sheep, attack Jones and
  his men.

Starter
Put these events from chapter four in order. The first one has been done for
you.
2. Mr Jones and his men attack the farm and attempt to take it back.
4. Snowball sounds the retreat and pulls his forces back to the yard.
1. Animals begin to rebel against humans in other farms across the country.
6. The men run from the farm, defeated.
5. The larger animals attack the men. A sheep is killed and Snowball is
injured.
7. Snowball, Boxer and the dead sheep receive medals at the sheep’s funeral.
3. The smaller animals, including the birds and the sheep, attack Jones and
his men.

Key Words
• Manipulate –
   control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly or without
   morals.

• What are some synonyms that you can think of? This will help with
  phrasing your response later.

Reading
Read through the fifth chapter.

Whilst reading, consider the following:
• How Napoleon is presented and why Orwell presents him this way
• Any manipulation that takes place
• The expulsion of Snowball from the farm

Summary
 __________ vanished and is rumoured to be happy serving under Mr
 __________. The conflict between __________ and Snowball increases
 as their disagreements become more __________. Snowball suggests
 building a __________, which brings the farm’s __________ out into
 the open. Napoleon’s __________ attack Snowball and he is forced to
 flee for his life.
 Once he has seized power, Napoleon ____________ the Sunday
 debates. __________ tells the animals that the windmill will be built
 after all, and that it was Napoleon’s idea all along.
abolishes           Mollie      serious             Squealer         dogs
       Pilkington       Napoleon        divisions         windmill

Make notes in your own
                                                      words as it is more beneficial

Why is this chapter important?                        than copying notes out word
                                                      for word.

• The pigs now control what happens on the farm; they decide ‘all
  questions on farm policy’.
• Plans for the windmill are simplified into slogans rather than
  discussed in reason speeches. Orwell argued that simplifying
  language led to simple thoughts.
• The continued disagreements between Napoleon and Snowball
  indicate the differing views of socialism held at the time.

Make notes in your own
                                                     words as it is more beneficial

Why is this chapter important?                       than copying notes out word
                                                     for word.

• Napoleon shows his contempt for free speech.
• The Sunday meetings, instead of being a time when the animals agree
  their workload, becomes the assembly at which their orders are
  given.
• The chapter ends on a much bleaker note than that on which it
  opened.

Mini-Plenary
1. What does Mollie’s love of sugar suggest?
2. What hints are there in this chapter that Napoleon has carefully
   planned the way in which he gains power?
3. How does Squealer persuade the animals to doubt their own
   opinions?

Make notes in your own
                                                       words as it is more beneficial

Character: Napoleon                                    than copying notes out word
                                                       for word.

• Napoleon makes little response to Snowball’s speeches, and when he
  does speak it is only to criticise Snowball.
• His campaign against Snowball is carefully planned, as is
  demonstrated by his use of the sheep and dogs.
• Napoleon’s use of violence to establish absolute control suggests that
  his coup has been planned for a long time.
• An immediate parallel is drawn between Napoleon and Mr Jones
  when we are told the dogs wagged their tails to Napoleon ‘in the
  same way as the other dogs had been used to do to Mr Jones’.

Character: Napoleon
 • Create a power graph, charting the changing authority of Napoleon and Snowball between
   the start of the novel and the end of Chapter 5
 • Pick out specific events and decide who is in control at each point
 • Join the crosses to see the shape of power

 Napoleon

 Snowball

Make notes in your own
                                                         words as it is more beneficial

Theme: Manipulation                                      than copying notes out word
                                                         for word.

• Although the revolution is supposed to have created an equal society,
  in this chapter we see the animals slowly lose control over their lives.
• All decisions are taken by the pigs, although at first they claim that
  decisions are to be agreed by a majority vote.
• The animals’ fickle nature (for example, changing their mind based on
  whoever is currently talking) and their lack of intelligence make it
  easy for Napoleon to manipulate them.
• The sheep, with their mindless bleating, effectively silence any
  opposition. Though the animals are uneasy about Napoleon’s actions,
  they cannot express what they feel.

Theme: Manipulation
‘If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right.’
• Using the above quote as a starting point, explore how manipulation
  is presented in this chapter.
• Support your ideas with evidence from the text.
• EXT: Consider where else manipulation is shown.

                           Manipulation

Event: Snowball’s Expulsion
• Consider the events leading up to Snowball’s expulsion.
• Identify, and support with evidence, how Napoleon opposes
  Snowball.
Snowball                                               Napoleon

Snowball wants the idea of Animalism to be spread to
other farms so that they can ‘stir up rebellion’.

Snowball is innovative and seeks to improve life on
Animal Farm. He makes a ‘close study’ of books.

Snowball is keen for a windmill to be built on the
farm. Whilst the initial labour would increase, the
outcome would be a three-day working week.

Make notes in your own
                                                       words as it is more beneficial

Event: Snowball’s Expulsion                            than copying notes out word
                                                       for word.

• Snowball’s expulsion from Animal Farm solidifies the idea that
  Napoleon saw him as a threat.
• We can infer that Napoleon pre-empted Snowball’s opposition from
  the very beginning, hence why he took the puppies and later had the
  sheep disrupt Snowball’s speeches – the expulsion was too organised
  to be a spontaneous power grab.
• A mere three weeks after his expulsion, Squealer begins trying to
  alter the animals’ perceptions of Snowball and his achievements,
  suggesting that ‘the time will come when we shall find that Snowball’s
  part in [the battle] was much exaggerated’.

Thinking more deeply
• Write one or two sentences in response to each of these questions:
1. Why do you think the sheep bleat ‘Four legs good, two legs bad’
   during Snowball’s speech?
2. Why do you think Napoleon says so little in the debate about
   whether to build a windmill?
3. Why do you think Napoleon changes his mind and decides to build
   the windmill?

Writing task
• Produce two paragraphs for the following:

   “He had seemed to oppose the windmill, simply as a manoeuvre to get rid of
   Snowball, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence.”
   Explore the importance of manipulation in the novella.
   You must refer to the context of the novel in your answer.

• You should use the quotes that you found earlier in the lesson to
  help.
• Look at the model response on the next slide.

Writing task
In order to seize and consolidate power, manipulation is a crucial tool. The
animals of Manor Farm are initially influenced by Old Major, moved by his
rousing rhetoric on how to achieve the ‘overthrow of the human race’. Here,
we are shown a more subtle form of manipulation: persuasion. Whilst
ordinarily considering the idea of manipulation as a bad thing, Orwell, at this
stage of the novella, presents it to us as a positive and necessary measure
needed to propel the concept of Animalism. By considering Old Major’s
speech to be persuasive, not manipulative, it presents the idea as being more
acceptable. However, it could also be inferred that Orwell himself is
controlling the way in which the reader views the notion of manipulation: to
support it when it furthers the socialist cause and to oppose it when it is used
in conjunction with totalitarianism. Therefore, from the very beginning of the
novella we are acutely aware of the importance of control and how the
minority can use it to sway the masses.