Windmill Project

The Windmill Project is the most ambitious and transformative undertaking on Animal Farm, a construction effort that spans multiple years, consumes the animals' strength, and becomes the central symbol of the regime's broken promises and the pigs' consolidation of power. Originally conceived by Snowball as a means to electrify the farm and reduce the animals' workweek to three days, the windmill is repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, its purpose gradually perverted from a utopian labor-saving device into a commercial mill that enriches the pigs while the other animals remain hungry and overworked.

Origins and Initial Vision

The windmill was first proposed by Snowball, who declared that the small knoll near the farm buildings was the ideal location for a windmill that could operate a dynamo and supply the farm with electrical power. This, he promised, would light and warm the stalls in winter, and run a circular saw, a chaff-cutter, a mangel-slicer, and an electric milking machine. The animals, who had never heard of such things, listened in astonishment as Snowball conjured pictures of fantastic machines that would do their work while they grazed at ease or improved their minds with reading and conversation. Snowball worked out the mechanical details from three books that had belonged to Mr. Jones: One Thousand Useful Things to Do About the House, Every Man His Own Bricklayer, and Electricity for Beginners. He spent hours in the old incubator shed, drawing plans on the smooth wooden floor with chalk, producing a complicated mass of cranks and cog-wheels that covered more than half the floor. All the animals came to look at the drawings at least once a day, even the hens and ducks, who were at pains not to tread on the chalk marks. Only Napoleon held aloof, declaring himself against the windmill from the start. One day he arrived unexpectedly, examined the plans, and then suddenly lifted his leg, urinated over them, and walked out without a word.

Political Struggle and the Expulsion of Snowball

The windmill became the central issue in the bitter rivalry between Snowball and Napoleon. Snowball argued that the windmill could be built in a year and would thereafter allow the animals to work only three days a week. Napoleon countered that the great need was to increase food production and that wasting time on the windmill would lead to starvation. The animals divided into two factions under the slogans "Vote for Snowball and the three-day week" and "Vote for Napoleon and the full manger." At the crucial Sunday meeting when the question was to be put to the vote, Snowball's eloquence carried the animals away, painting a picture of Animal Farm where electricity would operate threshing machines, ploughs, harrows, rollers, and reapers and binders, besides supplying every stall with electric light, hot and cold water, and an electric heater. But just as victory seemed certain, Napoleon stood up and uttered a high-pitched whimper. Nine enormous dogs, the puppies he had secretly raised, burst into the barn and chased Snowball off the farm. With Snowball expelled, Napoleon announced that the Sunday-morning Meetings would end and that all questions would be settled by a special committee of pigs presided over by himself. Yet on the third Sunday after Snowball's expulsion, Napoleon announced that the windmill was to be built after all. Squealer later explained privately that Napoleon had never really been opposed to the windmill; he had only seemed to oppose it as a tactic to get rid of Snowball, and the plan had actually been stolen from among Napoleon's papers.

Construction, Destruction, and Rebuilding

The building of the windmill presented unexpected difficulties. The animals could not use picks and crowbars because no animal could stand on his hind legs, so they had to utilize the force of gravity: they lashed ropes around huge boulders, dragged them with desperate slowness up the slope to the top of the quarry, and toppled them over the edge to shatter below. Transporting the broken stone was comparatively simple, with horses carrying cart-loads, sheep dragging single blocks, and even Muriel and Benjamin yoking themselves into an old governess-cart. Boxer's strength seemed equal to that of all the rest of the animals put together; when a boulder began to slip and the animals cried out in despair, it was always Boxer who strained himself against the rope and brought it to a stop. The animals worked a sixty-hour week throughout spring and summer, and in August Napoleon announced that there would be work on Sunday afternoons as well—strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself would have his rations reduced by half. By autumn the windmill was almost half built, but in November a violent gale destroyed it, leveling it to its foundations. Napoleon immediately blamed Snowball, pronouncing the death sentence upon him and offering a bushel of apples for his capture. The animals began rebuilding with walls three feet thick instead of eighteen inches, but the winter was bitter, food fell short, and the potato crop was frosted. The hens were forced to surrender their eggs to pay for grain, and when they resisted, nine hens died before they capitulated. Throughout the following year the animals worked even harder, with Squealer reading out lists of figures proving that production had increased by two hundred, three hundred, or five hundred percent, though the animals felt they would sooner have had less figures and more food. By autumn the windmill was finished again, and Napoleon named it Napoleon Mill. But two days later, Frederick and his men attacked, and after a fierce battle, they blew up the windmill with blasting powder, destroying it completely. The animals rebuilt it once more, and by the time years had passed, the windmill had been successfully completed at last.

Final Purpose and Significance

The completed windmill was not used for generating electrical power as Snowball had once dreamed. Instead, it was used for milling corn and brought in a handsome money profit. The animals were hard at work building yet another windmill, which, it was said, would eventually have dynamos installed. But the luxuries Snowball had taught them to dream of—the stalls with electric light and hot and cold water, and the three-day week—were no longer talked about. Napoleon denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of Animalism, declaring that the truest happiness lay in working hard and living frugally. The farm grew richer, but the animals themselves did not; they were generally hungry, slept on straw, drank from the pool, and labored in the fields. The windmill, which had begun as a vision of liberation, had become a monument to the pigs' enrichment and the other animals' endless toil.