Flag changed to plain green

The flag of Animal Farm had its origins in the heady days after the Rebellion. Snowball had found an old green tablecloth that had belonged to Mrs. Jones, painted a white hoof and a horn upon it, and raised it every Sunday morning. The green stood for the fields of England, the hoof and horn for the future Republic of the Animals, a symbol of the liberation that all animals had worked for.

But in the final chapter, when Napoleon invited a deputation of neighbouring farmers to tour the farm, he used the occasion to announce a series of changes that stripped away the last vestiges of revolutionary symbolism. The flag flying from the masthead was now a plain green; the white hoof and horn had been removed. Alongside this, Napoleon also suppressed the custom of marching past the buried skull of Old Major, forbade the use of the word 'Comrade', and later that same evening would rename the farm back to 'The Manor Farm'. The flag that had once been a rallying point for the animals' hope was reduced to a bare piece of cloth, emptied of the ideals that had inspired the Rebellion.