No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets

The Fourth Commandment, "No animal shall sleep in a bed," was one of the Seven Commandments inscribed on the end wall of the big barn by Snowball shortly after the expulsion of Mr. Jones. It formed part of the unalterable law that was to govern Animal Farm forever, derived from the principles of Animalism that the pigs had elaborated from Old Major's teachings. The Commandments were written in great white letters that could be read thirty yards away, and the cleverer animals at once began to learn them by heart, accepting them as the foundation of their new society.

The Commandment's Original Meaning and Context

The prohibition against sleeping in a bed was rooted in Old Major's warning that animals must not adopt the vices of Man. In his speech before the Rebellion, Major had declared that "no animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade." The bed, like clothes and alcohol, was a symbol of human luxury and corruption. When the animals first took possession of the farmhouse after the Rebellion, they passed a unanimous resolution that it should be preserved as a museum and that no animal must ever live there. They entered the house with awe, tiptoeing from room to room, afraid to speak above a whisper at the sight of the feather mattresses and other luxuries. Mollie was discovered in the best bedroom admiring herself in the glass with a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs. Jones's dressing-table, and was sharply reproached. The farmhouse was to remain untouched, a monument to the old regime.

The First Breach: Pigs Move into the Farmhouse

Months later, as the pigs consolidated their power, they suddenly moved into the farmhouse and took up residence there. The animals seemed to remember that a resolution against this had been passed in the early days, but Squealer was able to convince them otherwise. He argued that the pigs, as the brains of the farm, needed a quiet place to work, and that it was more suited to the dignity of the Leader—Napoleon, now referred to by that title—to live in a house than in a mere sty. Some animals were disturbed when they heard that the pigs not only took their meals in the kitchen and used the drawing-room as a recreation room, but also slept in the beds. Boxer passed it off with his usual maxim, "Napoleon is always right!" but Clover, who thought she remembered a definite ruling against beds, went to the end of the barn to puzzle out the Seven Commandments.

The Textual Alteration: Sheets vs. Beds

Unable to read more than individual letters herself, Clover fetched Muriel, the goat, and asked her to read the Fourth Commandment. With some difficulty, Muriel spelt it out: "It says, 'No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets,'" she announced. Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment mentioned sheets, but as it was there on the wall, it must have done so. Squealer, happening to pass at that moment attended by two or three dogs, was able to put the matter in its proper perspective. He explained that a bed merely meant a place to sleep in, and that a pile of straw in a stall was a bed, properly regarded. The rule, he said, was against sheets, which were a human invention. The pigs had removed the sheets from the farmhouse beds and slept between blankets. He appealed to the animals not to rob the pigs of their repose, given all the brainwork they had to do, and asked whether any of them wished to see Jones back. The animals reassured him immediately, and no more was said about the pigs sleeping in the farmhouse beds. The alteration of the Fourth Commandment was the first of several such textual revisions that would gradually transform the Seven Commandments into instruments of pig supremacy.

Significance and Pattern of Revision

The alteration of the Fourth Commandment established a pattern that would be repeated with other commandments as the pigs' privileges expanded. The Commandment "No animal shall kill any other animal" later acquired the words "without cause" after the executions of animals accused of conspiring with Snowball. The Fifth Commandment, "No animal shall drink alcohol," was amended to read "No animal shall drink alcohol TO EXCESS" after Napoleon's drunken episode. The final transformation of the Commandments came when the pigs began walking on their hind legs and carrying whips, and the entire wall was reduced to a single maxim: "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS." The Fourth Commandment's revision was thus the first step in a process that systematically dismantled the original revolutionary laws, replacing them with a system that justified the pigs' complete domination over the other animals.