Animal Farm - Chapter 11

A generation passed – even now, very few animals whom participated in the revolution were still around. What had once been a great cause, had fallen into pieces. Clover, though her eyesight had gone, never forgot the words that had replaced the original Seven Commandments of Animal Farm:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

She walked past it everyday, whispering the words to herself over and over so that no animals would overhear. When her vision went, she lied in her lonesome, trying to understand what it meant. She vaguely remembered how Napoleon had defined equal, but eventually came the conclusion that it meant same.When the younger animals asked what was written on the post, Clover would whisper, “We are all not the same. All animals are not the same.”

Napoleon had taken down the post when he left the farm; all the animals were old and decrepit, and the new animals were too young to work as hard as he wanted. Food and supplies were low, barely enough to sufficiently feed each animal. Napoleon had grown weary of raising the young and running the farm. He made the decision late fall,to take all the farm's earnings and go off on vacation to another home he had secretly established months before. One Sunday morning, the animals awoke to The absence of Napoleon and his dogs. Clover walked up the hill and looked over the farm, puzzled on how the animals would care for themselves from then on. She made it a point to tell the newest animals of Animal Farm's past, hoping they would carry on the farm's original traditions. Clover told honest stories of Mr. Jones and his mistreatment of the animals, the very first fight between animals and humans, Battle of the Cowshed, Sunday meetings and the song Beasts of England, and of Snowball's disappearance and Napoleon's rule over the farm. Most importantly, she told them of Major's speech that started the whole revolution. “No animal in England is free. No animal knows the meaning of leisure after he is a year old. The life of an animal is misery and slavery. This is truth. Nearly the whole of our produce of our labor is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems, summed up in a single word: Man. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.”' The animals whom were still alive along with Clover would occasionally interrupt and add detail, but overall let her tell the story. The young animals just listened – no interruptions, no questions.

As another winter rolled around, all of the animals whom participated in the revolution had passed away. Important facts of the revolution had been misremembered, distorted and skewed by the young animals. Values were lost, and they all eventually forgot the reason they were told the stories in the first place. When humans began to linger around the farm again, they mingled.