the cat

From the very first gathering of the animals in the big barn, the cat established a pattern of detachment. She arrived last, looked around for the warmest place, squeezed herself between Boxer and Clover, and purred contentedly throughout Old Major's speech without listening to a word. Her sole concern was physical comfort, not the revolutionary vision that stirred the others.

When the vote was taken on whether rats were comrades, the cat was one of only four dissentients, alongside the three dogs. But it was later discovered that she had voted on both sides—a quiet act of duplicity that revealed her indifference to principle and her willingness to hedge her bets.

After the Rebellion, the cat's behaviour became conspicuously evasive. It was soon noticed that whenever work was to be done, she could never be found. She would vanish for hours on end, then reappear at meal-times or in the evening as though nothing had happened. Yet she always made such excellent excuses, and purred so affectionately, that it was impossible not to believe in her good intentions.

She joined the Wild Comrades' Re-education Committee and was very active in it for some days. But her true motive became clear when she was seen sitting on a roof, talking to sparrows just out of her reach. She told them they were all comrades now and that any sparrow could come and perch on her paw—but the sparrows kept their distance. Her involvement was a charade, a performance of solidarity without real commitment.

During the Battle of the Cowshed, however, the cat briefly shed her passivity. At the height of the fight, she suddenly leapt off a roof onto a cowman's shoulders and sank her claws into his neck, making him yell horribly. It was a moment of violent, opportunistic action, the only time she actively participated in the farm's defence, and it was over as quickly as it began.

When Napoleon ordered the animals to assemble for the public executions of the alleged traitors, the cat was notably absent. She had disappeared just before the summons, avoiding the horror of watching her comrades torn apart. While the other animals—Clover, Muriel, Benjamin, the cows, the sheep, the geese and hens—lay huddled together on the knoll in shock and misery, the cat was nowhere to be seen. She had once again slipped away to preserve her own comfort.

Throughout the entire narrative, the cat remains a static, self-serving figure. She never develops a commitment to Animalism, never sacrifices for the collective, and never suffers the consequences of her evasions. Her presence serves as a counterpoint to the earnest labour of Boxer and Clover, the cynicism of Benjamin, and the growing tyranny of the pigs. She is a reminder that revolution does not change every individual, and that some will always put their own ease above all else.