Question 1 : Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
This arrangement would have worked well enough if it had not been for the disputes between Snowball and Napoleon. These two disagreed at every point where disagreement was possible.
i) What ‘arrangement’ has been mentioned here?
Answer : It had come to be accepted that the pigs, who were manifestly cleverer than the other animals, should decide all questions of farm policy, though their decisions had to be ratified by a majority vote. This arrangement is being talked about here.
ii) Which was the bitterest dispute between them?
Answer : Snowball and Napoleon could not agree on any point. They disagreed at every point where disagreement was possible. However, of all their controversies, none was so bitter as the one that took place over the windmill.
iii) How did Napoleon express his dissent for the dispute?
Answer : One day, Napoleon arrived unexpectedly to examine the plans. He walked heavily round the shed, looked closely at every detail of the plan and snuffed at them once or twice, then stood for a little while contemplating them out of the corner of his eye; then suddenly he lifted his leg, urinated over the plans, and walked out without uttering a word.
iv) What was the outcome of the bitterest dispute?
Answer : The day for casting the vote for the windmill came. Snowball, as usual, presented a beautiful speech and swayed the audience in his favour. However, he had not even finished when Napoleon gave out a loud whimper and nine ferocious dogs came running after Snowball. They did not stop until they had made Snowball run out of the farm to save his life.
v) What did Napoleon do after the outcome of the dispute?
Answer : Napoleon, with the dogs following him, mounted on the raised portion of the floor where Major had previously stood to deliver his speech. He announced that from now on the Sunday-morning meetings would come to an end. They were unnecessary, he said, and wasted time. In future all questions relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special committee of pigs, presided over by himself. They would meet in private and afterwards communicate their decisions to the others.
Long Answer Type Questions
Question 1 : Napoleon comes about as the ultimate shrewd opportunist. How did he overthrow Snowball? Why didn’t the other animals protest?
Answer : January bought bitter cold weather. The pigs decided all the matters of the farm policy. However, Snowball and Napoleon never agreed on anything and were at constant altercations. They both had their followers. Snowball declared that they needed a windmill and proposed the plans.
In the long pasture, not far from the farm buildings, there was a small knoll which was the highest point on the farm. After surveying the ground, Snowball declared that this was just the place for a windmill, which could be made to operate a dynamo and supply the farm with electrical power. This would light the stalls and warm them in winter and would also run a cricular saw, a chaffcutter, a magnet-slicer, and an electric milking machine. He painted a perfect picture of how electricity would change their lives.
But like always, Napoleon was averse to the ideas. He expressed his dislike by urinating over the plans. Then there was a difference of opinion relating to the defence of the farm. Snowball wanted to spread the rebellion and Napoleon wanted to procure firearms and train themselves. The day of the voting for the windmill came. When the animals had assembled in the big farm, Snowball stood up and, though occasionally interrupted by bleating from the sheep, set forth his reason for advocating the building of the windmill.
Then Napoleon stood up to reply. He said very quietly that the windmill was nonsense and that he advised nobody to vote for it, and promptly sat down again; he had spoken for barely thirty seconds, and seemed almost indifferent as to the effect he produced. At this Snowball sprang to his feet, and gave an eloquent speech. All animals were diverted in his favour. By the time he had finished speaking, there was no doubt as to which way the vote would go. But just at this moment Napoleon stood up and, causing a peculiar sidelong look at Snowball, uttered a high-pitched whimper of a kind no one had ever heard him utter before. At this there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball. The dogs were the same puppies that Napoleon had took on the pretext of teaching them. They chased Snowball out of the farm.
The animals were shocked. They wanted to protest. But the menacing dogs let out such growls that everybody was scared to say something. Then suddenly the sheep started bleating out ‘Four legs good, two legs bad’ and all possibilities of discussions were killed.
Question 2 : Snowball, no doubt, was a visionary. The only thing he wanted was the betterment of the farm. However, he was not able to recognise Napoleon’s true self. In the light of this statement, draw a pen-portrait of Snowball.
Answer : Snowball has been introduced as “a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character”. Snowball emerged as a fervent ideologue who threw himself heart and soul into the attempt to spread Animalism worldwide and to improve Animal Farm’s infrastructure.
Like Old Major, Snowball was a kind of a dreamer: he imagined greater technical achievements on the farm and a revolution that could spread all the way across England. Snowball wanted the Rebellion to spread; he wanted to sent out “more and more pigeons to stir up rebellion among the animals on other farms” and then there was his dream project of the windmill. He painted a fairyland word in front of the farm animals to gain support and tell them how their lives would be more comfortable when the windmill would become functional. However, this was the time when we encounter some faults in his planning. He did not know how long they would have to work or how they would procure the different materials required for the windmill.
We also learn that Snowball was a much better public speaker, and that he “often won over the majority by his brilliant speeches, but Napoleon was better at canvassing support for himself in between times.” His idealism, however, led to his downfall. Relying only on the force of his logic and rhetorical skill to gain his influence, he proved no match for Napoleon’s show of brute force.
Although Orwell has depicted Snowball in a relatively appealing light, he refrained from idealising his character, making sure to endow him with certain moral flaws. For example, Snowball basically accepted the superiority of pigs over the rest of the animals. Plus, when the other animals weren’t too happy that the pigs took all the milk, Snowball insisted that they need it for all their brainwork. Then he again doesn’t show his concern when the other animals of the farm were robbed off the windfall apples and they all went into the pig’s hands. Moreover, his fervent, single-minded enthusiasm for grand projects such as the windmill might have erupted into full-blown megalomaniac despotism had he not been chased from Animal Farm.
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