Chapter 5
Napoleon takes control
“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where would we be?”
Activity:
When the vicious dogs suddenly appear in Chapter 5, it shocks the other animals. How did you feel as a reader? How has Orwell constructed the story? Has he deliberately kept certain things hidden from the other animals and from the readers?
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Extra: The conflict between Snowball and Napoleon mirrors the conflict between Trotsky and Stalin. Find out more in this video:
Extra: Mollie’s defection represents people who fled the USSR in the hope of a better life
Fleeing the USSR
“Those who could manage to get out in the first days of the Bolshevik revolution were mainly members of the aristocracy. But in the autumn of 1920, as the last remnants of General Wrangel’s White, anti-Bolshevik forces were driven south, a vast wave of desperate and dispossessed civilians fled the country as well. These people left with little more than a few hastily packed bags and their last few tradeable possessions. They could be seen desperately begging and bartering for safe passage out of the southern ports of Odessa, Novorossisk, Sevastopol and Yalta – by any means available.”