Flagstaff

The Flagstaff stands at the heart of Animal Farm's ceremonial life, a pole in the farmhouse garden around which the animals gather every Sunday morning for the hoisting of the green flag. It is the fixed point where the farm's founding symbols—the flag, the gun, and Old Major's skull—are assembled into a ritual that transforms collective memory into obedience. Over the course of the novel, the Flagstaff becomes a barometer of the regime's consolidation: what begins as a site of revolutionary celebration ends as the stage for a cult of personality, its original meanings quietly erased.

Location and Ceremonial Role

The Flagstaff is located in the farmhouse garden, and every Sunday morning after breakfast the animals assemble there for the weekly ceremony. Snowball found an old green tablecloth of Mrs. Jones's in the harness-room and painted on it a hoof and a horn in white; this was run up the flagstaff every Sunday morning. Snowball explained that the green colour represented the green fields of England, while the hoof and horn signified the future Republic of the Animals that would arise when the human race had been finally overthrown. After the hoisting of the flag, all the animals trooped into the big barn for the general assembly known as the Meeting, where the work of the coming week was planned and resolutions were debated. The ceremony was observed every week without fail.

The Gun and the Skull

After the Battle of the Cowshed, Mr. Jones's gun was found lying in the mud, and it was decided to set it up at the foot of the Flagstaff, like a piece of artillery. It was to be fired twice a year—once on October the twelfth, the anniversary of the Battle of the Cowshed, and once on Midsummer Day, the anniversary of the Rebellion. Later, after Snowball's expulsion, the skull of Old Major, now clean of flesh, was disinterred from the orchard and set up on a stump at the foot of the Flagstaff, beside the gun. Every Sunday morning, after the hoisting of the flag, the animals were required to file past the skull in a reverent manner before entering the barn. The skull and the gun together turned the Flagstaff into a shrine of the dead founder and the military victory, a site where reverence and threat were fused.

Expansion of the Ritual Calendar

The ceremonial use of the Flagstaff expanded as Napoleon's power grew. It was announced that the gun would also be fired every year on Napoleon's birthday, in addition to the two existing anniversaries. The Spontaneous Demonstrations, held once a week, involved the animals marching in military formation around the precincts of the farm, with the pigs leading, then the horses, then the cows, then the sheep, and then the poultry, while the dogs flanked the procession and at the head of all marched Napoleon's black cockerel. Boxer and Clover always carried between them a green banner marked with the hoof and the horn and the caption "Long live Comrade Napoleon!" Afterward there were recitations of poems composed in Napoleon's honour, and a speech by Squealer giving particulars of the latest increases in the production of foodstuffs, and on occasion a shot was fired from the gun. The Flagstaff was the anchor of these processions, the point around which the animals' sense of pride and belonging was organised.

The Erasure of Symbols

In the final chapter, the Flagstaff undergoes its last transformation. Napoleon announces that the green flag which flew from the masthead would now be a plain green flag: the white hoof and horn with which it had previously been marked had been removed. The flag was stripped of its revolutionary iconography, just as the name "Animal Farm" was abolished and the farm reverted to "The Manor Farm." The Flagstaff remained, but it now flew a blank banner, a sign that the Republic of the Animals had been quietly abandoned. The animals still heard the gun booming and saw the green flag fluttering at the masthead, and their hearts swelled with imperishable pride, but the symbols no longer meant what they had once meant. The Flagstaff, which had been the site of the first joyful hoisting of the green tablecloth, ended as the pole of an empty flag.