Animal Farm Chapter 7

The winter is difficult and building the windmill is even more work this time since the walls are being built thicker.

"They were always cold, and usually hungry as well." Chapter 7, pp. 62-3

In January the farm starts running out of food and rations have to be drastically reduced - Napoleon arranges to have Whymper contradict any rumors in the outside world of a shortage on Animal Farm.

Topic Tracking: Propaganda 13

The shortage becomes so serious that Napoleon makes a contract to sell 400 eggs a week to buy grain, until the summer when things will get easier. The hens try to protest, but Napoleon orders that no hens will receive any food until they cooperate - after five days and the deaths of nine hens, they have to agree.

Napoleon decides to sell a pile of timber that has been left in the yard - Pilkington and Frederick both want to buy it.

Snowball is apparently regularly sabotaging Animal Farm:

"If a window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the store-shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after the mislaid key was found under a sack of meal." Chapter 7, pg. 66

Napoleon goes through the farm sniffing around and declares he finds traces of Snowball everywhere - Squealer tells the animals that it has been discovered that Snowball has sold himself to Frederick, and was in league with Jones from the very start. Boxer initially refuses to believe this and takes a lot of convincing.

Topic Tracking: Propaganda 14

Four days later Napoleon orders the animals to gather, and at a signal his dogs attack the four young pigs who complained about the Meetings being abolished. Three dogs seem to go quite crazy and try to attack Boxer, who pins one of them to the ground - Napoleon tells Boxer to let the dog go, and they slink away.

Napoleon tells the four pigs to confess their crimes, and they confess to being in league with Snowball - the dogs then tear their throats out. The hens who led the rebellion over the eggs come forward and say Snowball told them to rebel - they are killed. Other animals make confessions and are killed; it goes on until there is a pile of bodies.

Topic Tracking: Principles of Animalism 12

The surviving animals are in shock and huddle together around Clover, who starts crying thinking about how different this is from what they dreamed of before the Rebellion:

"If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak... Instead - she did not know why - they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes." Chapter 7, pp. 73-4

Still, she knows that things must be better than they were in Jones's day.

The animals sadly start singing 'Beasts of England', but Squealer appears with two dogs and tells them the song has been banned and replaced with a new song about Animal Farm composed by Minimus.

Topic Tracking: Propaganda 15
Topic Tracking: Principles of Animalism 13