Pigs to wear green ribbons on Sundays

In the autumn following the pigs' move into the farmhouse, a new privilege was decreed: all pigs, regardless of rank, were to wear green ribbons on their tails on Sundays. This rule was established alongside others, such as the requirement that any other animal must step aside when meeting a pig on the path. The green ribbons, a small adornment, became a visible marker of the pigs' elevated status within the farm's hierarchy.

The introduction of ribbons represented a stark reversal of the Rebellion's early principles. On the day of the Rebellion, Snowball had thrown the ribbons used to decorate the horses' manes onto the fire, declaring that ribbons should be considered as clothes, which are the mark of a human being. Mollie, the white mare, had been devoted to her ribbons and secretly hoarded them, but eventually defected when she could not have them. The pigs' adoption of green ribbons thus signaled a return to the very human accessories they had once rejected.

The green ribbons became part of the regular Sunday ritual, alongside the hoisting of the flag and the reading of orders. The privilege was not merely decorative; it reinforced the pigs' claim to a separate and superior identity. Other animals, already accustomed to the pigs' leadership, accepted the rule without protest, their memories of the original commandments fading.

The green ribbons on the pigs' tails were a small but telling step in the pigs' gradual assumption of human habits. Old Major had warned against wearing clothes, and the pigs had once slept on straw. Now, they wore ribbons, slept in beds, drank alcohol, and eventually walked on their hind legs. The final scene of the novel, where the pigs and humans become indistinguishable, made the trajectory complete: the green ribbons, like the other human trappings, had erased the line between animal and master.