Clover's hope

Clover's hope was first kindled by Old Major's speech, in which he described the misery of animal life under human beings and called for a Rebellion that would overthrow the tyrant Man. He laid down the principles: no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind, all animals are equal. In the months that followed, the pigs elaborated his teachings into Animalism, and after the Rebellion, Snowball and Napoleon inscribed the Seven Commandments on the barn wall. Snowball later condensed the Commandments into a single maxim, 'Four legs good, two legs bad,' which Clover accepted as a simple truth. She saw the whips thrown on the fire, the farm renamed, and believed that a new era of freedom had begun.

But the vision Clover had cherished was not of terror and slaughter. After the executions of the traitors, she stood on the knoll with the other animals, looking at the farm that was theirs. It was a clear spring evening, and the farm had never seemed so desirable. Yet her eyes filled with tears. The future she had imagined was a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, with the strong protecting the weak—as she had once protected a brood of ducklings with her foreleg. Instead, they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when dogs roamed, and comrades were torn to pieces. She knew they were better off than under Jones, and she would remain faithful, work hard, and accept Napoleon's leadership. But still, it was not for this that they had built the windmill and faced the bullets of Jones's gun.

In the years that followed, the animals worked like slaves, but they were told that production had increased by hundreds of percent. The farm grew richer, yet the animals themselves grew no richer; only the pigs and dogs prospered. Clover could not find the words to express her unease, but she sensed that the promise of equality was being eroded. She continued to work without complaint, her faith in Napoleon unshaken, but the gap between the ideal and the daily reality widened.

Then came the day when the pigs began to walk on their hind legs. Squealer paraded across the yard, followed by a file of pigs, all upright. Napoleon himself appeared, majestically, a whip in his trotter. Later, when the pigs entertained the neighboring farmers, a quarrel broke out, and from the window the animals heard twelve voices shouting in anger, all alike. Looking from pig to man, it was impossible to tell them apart. Clover's old eyes had seen enough; the hope that had once filled her heart had been replaced by a silent, uncomprehending sorrow.