Study+Guide+Questions

Study Guide Questions – Animal Farm
These questions will help you stay on track with the plot as well as build your reading comprehension. Directions: Answer these questions on a separate piece of paper as you read. All answers should be written in complete sentences.

1. Who first introduces the idea of the revolution to the animals? 2. What word does Major use to address the animals? 3. What song does Major introduce to the animals? 4. Why does Major sing Beasts of England to the animals? What purpose does he want it to serve?
 * Chapter 1**

1. Why do the animals succeed in the revolution? 2. What does Mrs. Jones do as the rebellion begins? 3. What things capture Mollie’s attention? 4. Why do you think the pigs teach themselves to read and write? 5. What are the seven commandments? 6. What disappears at the end of the chapter? 7. Why do you think Orwell includes this detail, particularly at the end of a chapter?
 * Chapter 2**

1. What colors and symbols are on the flag that the animals raise? 2. What maxim do the animals adopt? 3. What purpose does the maxim serve? Do you predict it will have a positive or negative effect as the novel continues? 4. What animals does Napoleon take to rear separately from the others? 5. Why do you think Napoleon isolates these animals?
 * Chapter 3**

1. Where does Mr. Jones spend his time after being expelled from the farm? 2. What are the names of the two neighboring farmers? 3. What are some of the negative rumors that are spread about Animal Farm? 4. What do the animals name the battle that occurs in this chapter? 5. Why are the animals, once again, successful against the humans in battle?
 * Chapter 4**

1. Who is accused of having contact with a human? 2. How does Napoleon use the sheep to achieve his goals? 3. What benefit does Snowball propose the windmill will provide? 4. What are the arguments against building the windmill? Why does it prompt such a heated discussion? 5. Why does Napoleon resort to running Snowball off in a violent manner? In what other ways might Napoleon have handled the situation? 6. What does Napoleon’s use of the dogs suggest about the direction in which the operation of Animal Farm is moving? 7. What are Boxer’s two slogans? 8. What does Squealer mean when he explains that the reason Napoleon opposed the windmill at first was “Tactics, comrades, tactics!”?
 * Chapter 5**

1. What does Napoleon say must be done for the farm to survive? 2. Why does Napoleon decide that trade with humans is a necessary evil? How does he explain that to the animals? What is their reaction? How does he ultimately win them over? 3. What does Orwell imply when he writes that people finally began referring to the farm as Animal Farm instead of continuing to call it Manor Farm? 4. What happens to the windmill? 5. Whom does Napoleon accuse of destroying the windmill? 6. What is the benefit of making Snowball a scapegoat? How does it advance Napoleon’s purposes? How does it appease the other animals?
 * Chapter 6**

1. Which two animals have not yet “lost heart”? 2. What do the chickens have to surrender? Why? 3. According to reports, what is Snowball secretly doing? 4. List two specific accusations made in this chapter against Snowball. 5. What happens when various animals confess to crimes? 6. Why is “Beasts of England” banned?
 * Chapter 7**

1. What words are added (without the animals’ knowledge) to the commandment “No animal shall kill any other animal”? Why is this important? 2. What is the purpose of Napoleon’s self-imposed sequestering and ceremonial appearances? 3. What is Napoleon’s purpose for inscribing the poem and the portrait of himself on the wall? Is it possible that his purpose might backfire? 4. Why do the animals initially dislike Frederick? 5. What turnaround occurs regarding Pilkington and Frederick, and what do the animals think of each of them? 6. How does Frederick trick the animals? 7. What is the irony in the scene where the animals celebrate after the windmill has been blown up? What purpose does this use of irony serve? 8. For what purpose is the plot of ground that Napoleon has readied for the planting of barley originally intended? 9. What words are added (without the animals’ knowledge) to the commandment “No animal shall drink alcohol”? 10. What does the unexplainable incident that occurs at the very end of Chapter 8 confirm for readers? Do any of the animals “get it”? 11. Throughout the novel, the animals believe or are led to believe one thing and then are later convinced of another. Why is that and how is that achieved? What does it say about the animals? About Animal Farm? About society? About Orwell’s beliefs about Soviet Communism? 12. Have your attitudes as a reader changed throughout your reading of the novel? About the pigs? About various other animals? About Communism? Society?
 * Chapter 8**

1. What injury does Boxer sustain? 2. How does the use of “figures” operate throughout the novel? 3. Why are the young pigs born piebald? 4. What message is sent when bricks are bought and a schoolhouse is built for Napoleon’s offspring? 5. What is producing the wonderful smell coming from the farmhouse? 6. How is Napoleon served his half gallon of beer every day? 7. Orwell says that “life nowadays had a greater dignity than it had had before.” In what ways does that appear to be true? In what ways is that, in actuality, false? 8. What does Napoleon’s treatment of Boxer reveal? Why do the animals believe Squealer when he explains that Boxer was not sent to the knacker? 9. What do the pigs buy with the money that they receive from the knacker? 10. How do you think Orwell wants readers to react to the line, “From somewhere or other the pigs had acquired the money to buy themselves another case of whisky”?
 * Chapter 9**

1. Where is Jones when he dies? 2. When the first windmill is finally completed, how is it used? 3. What is the irony of Napoleon’s statement, “The truest happiness…lay in working hard and living frugally”? 4. What mysterious things do the pigs supposedly spend their time working on? 5. What human behavior do the pigs take on in the last chapter of the novel that goes against the first and most sacred commandment of Animalism? 6. Why don’t the animals organize a rebellion of their own to overthrow the pigs? What do you think would be the short term and the long term results if such a rebellion were to succeed? 7. What causes the fight between the humans and the pigs at the conclusion of the novel? 8. What makes the final scene in the farmhouse so powerful? 9. In Chapters 9 and 10, the farmhouse becomes as much a part of the setting as the rest of the farm itself. Why? What purpose does that serve?
 * Chapter 10**