Chapters 9-10: The Betrayal Complete
Boxer’s Fate: The Ultimate Betrayal
Boxer’s fate is the emotional heart of Animal Farm and Orwell’s most devastating indictment of totalitarianism. After years of backbreaking labour on the windmill, Boxer collapses. His lung gives out, and he can no longer work. The animals expect Napoleon to honour Boxer’s lifelong service by sending him to a veterinary hospital. Instead, a van arrives bearing the words “Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler.” Boxer is being sent to the knacker’s.
Benjamin, who has remained cynically silent throughout the novella, reads the lettering on the van aloud. The animals rush to the van, calling to Boxer. Boxer tries to kick his way out but is too weak. Squealer later claims the van had been bought by the vet but had not yet been repainted — a transparent lie. Napoleon uses the money from Boxer’s sale to buy whisky for the pigs.
Orwell makes Boxer’s fate so devastating because the reader has watched him give everything to the farm. His motto “I will work harder” represents genuine dedication, but it is exploited by a regime that values him only for his physical labour. The moment he can no longer produce, he is disposed of. This mirrors how Stalin’s regime worked Soviet citizens to exhaustion in the gulags and collective farms, then discarded those who could no longer contribute.
The Pigs in the Farmhouse
By the final chapters, the pigs have moved into Mr Jones’s farmhouse, sleep in beds, wear clothes, carry whips, and walk on their hind legs. Each of these actions directly contradicts the original Seven Commandments. The farmhouse, which was supposed to be “preserved as a museum” after the Rebellion, has become the pigs’ private quarters — just as the Kremlin, once a symbol of revolution, became the seat of a new autocratic elite.
The Seven Commandments are eventually reduced to a single statement: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This is one of the most famous sentences in English literature. It is a paradox — a logical impossibility that exposes the absurdity and hypocrisy of the pigs’ regime. If some are ‘more equal’, then none are truly equal. Orwell distils the entire tragedy of the novella into this single sentence: the revolution that promised equality has produced its exact opposite.
The Final Scene: Pigs and Men
The novella ends with a scene of devastating dramatic irony. The pigs host a dinner party for the neighbouring farmers. Napoleon announces that Animal Farm will revert to its original name, Manor Farm. The watching animals look through the window: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
The final scene shows the pigs have become indistinguishable from the humans they overthrew. The cyclical structure is complete: Manor Farm became Animal Farm and is now Manor Farm again. The word ‘revolution’ literally means ‘a full turn of a wheel’ — Orwell suggests that without vigilance, revolution simply brings society back to where it started.
It is tempting to read Animal Farm as a purely pessimistic story — revolutions always fail, power always corrupts. But Orwell was a democratic socialist who believed change was possible. He was not arguing against revolution itself, but warning that revolutions must be protected by educated, vigilant citizens who hold their leaders accountable. The animals fail because they cannot read, they trust blindly, and they allow the pigs to monopolise information. Orwell’s message is directed at the reader: if you recognise these patterns, you can resist them. The novella is a warning, not a prophecy of inevitable doom.
Life Under the Final Regime
By the closing chapters, the animals work longer hours than they did under Jones, receive less food, and have no freedom whatsoever. The promises of retirement pastures and heated stalls have been quietly abandoned. Squealer reads out lists of figures proving that production has increased, but the animals’ lived experience tells them otherwise — they are hungrier and more exhausted than ever. This gap between official propaganda and everyday reality is a hallmark of totalitarian states. In the Soviet Union, state media celebrated record harvests and industrial output while ordinary citizens queued for bread. Orwell makes this contrast explicit to show that propaganda does not need to be believed to be effective — it just needs to be the only narrative available.
The Circular Structure
The novella begins and ends with tyranny. Mr Jones’s drunken neglect is replaced by Napoleon’s calculated cruelty. The animals have worked harder, sacrificed more, and ended up no better off than they were under Jones. The circular structure reinforces Orwell’s central argument: revolution without education, accountability and genuine equality will always be co-opted by those who seek power. For the Edexcel exam, discussing how Orwell uses structure to convey his message demonstrates the sophisticated understanding that distinguishes top-level responses.