Whisky Incident

A few days after the Battle of the Windmill, the pigs came upon a case of whisky left in the farmhouse cellars, overlooked since the Rebellion. That night, loud singing erupted from the farmhouse, and to the general surprise, the strains of Beasts of England—a song that had been formally abolished—were mixed into the revelry. At half-past nine, Napoleon was distinctly seen to emerge from the back door wearing Mr. Jones's old bowler hat, gallop rapidly around the yard, and disappear indoors again. The next morning a deep silence hung over the farmhouse; no pig stirred. It was nearly nine o'clock when Squealer made his appearance, walking slowly and dejectedly, his eyes dull, his tail hanging limply, with every appearance of being seriously ill.

Squealer called the animals together and told them that Comrade Napoleon was dying. A cry of lamentation went up; straw was laid outside the farmhouse doors, and the animals walked on tiptoe, asking one another what they would do if their Leader were taken from them. A rumour spread that Snowball had contrived to poison Napoleon's food. At eleven o'clock Squealer came out to make another announcement: as his last act upon earth, Comrade Napoleon had pronounced a solemn decree—the drinking of alcohol was to be punished by death.

By evening, however, Napoleon appeared to be somewhat better, and the following morning Squealer was able to report that he was well on the way to recovery. Within a week, Napoleon instructed Mr. Whymper to purchase booklets on brewing and distilling from Willingdon. He then ordered the small paddock beyond the orchard, which had been intended as a retirement grazing-ground for superannuated animals, to be ploughed up and sown with barley. The pigs had broken the fundamental prohibition against alcohol that Old Major had laid down, and the Fifth Commandment was quietly altered to read: "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess."

The Whisky Incident revealed the growing gulf between the pigs' behaviour and the original ideals of Animalism. The pigs had not only adopted a human vice but had used a feigned deathbed scene to justify a draconian decree that would protect their own indulgence. The event foreshadowed the complete transformation of the pig leaders: they would soon walk on their hind legs, carry whips, wear human clothes, and become indistinguishable from the humans they had overthrown. The revolution had come full circle.