Get Animal Farm straight once, then move.

Animal Farm opens on Manor Farm, where a drunk farmer named Mr. Jones neglects and mistreats his animals. An aging prize boar called Old Major calls a meeting in the barn and delivers a speech about animal suffering. He argues that humans produce nothing but take everything, and that if animals unite and rebel, they can build a just society. Old Major dies three nights later, but two younger pigs—Napoleon and Snowball—take his ideas and shape them into a political system they call Animalism.

When Jones forgets to feed the animals one night, hunger drives them to break into the feed store. Jones and his men try to whip them back, and the animals fight back instinctively. Jones flees, and the animals find themselves in control of the farm. They rename it Animal Farm, burn the tools of human oppression, and paint Seven Commandments on the barn wall. The core principle is simple: all animals are equal, and humans are the enemy.

The early days feel genuinely hopeful. The harvest is better than it has ever been under Jones. The animals work with real enthusiasm because they believe the farm belongs to them. But the pigs position themselves as the intellectual leaders and begin taking small privileges—first the milk, then the apples—claiming they need extra nutrition to manage the farm. Squealer, the most persuasive pig, talks the other animals out of their doubts every time.

Napoleon and Snowball compete for influence. Snowball is a brilliant organizer who draws up plans for a windmill that would generate electricity and reduce the animals' workload. Napoleon opposes the windmill, but more importantly, he has been secretly raising a litter of puppies into a personal attack force. At the decisive meeting where the animals are about to vote for the windmill, Napoleon signals the dogs, who chase Snowball off the farm. Napoleon then announces that decisions will no longer be made by vote—the pigs will decide everything.

From this point, the farm's politics become openly authoritarian. Napoleon claims the windmill was his idea all along, and Squealer rewrites the history of Snowball's role, turning him from a hero of the Battle of the Cowshed into a traitor who secretly worked for Jones. Whenever something goes wrong—a storm destroys the windmill, food runs short—Snowball is blamed. The animals are too confused and too tired to push back.

The commandments change one by one. Pigs start sleeping in beds, then drinking alcohol, then trading with neighboring farms. Each time, Squealer adjusts the written rules slightly and insists the animals must have misremembered. A horse named Boxer absorbs every setback with the same two mottos: he will work harder, and Napoleon is always right. Boxer is the farm's most productive worker and its most loyal believer, which makes his fate the novel's cruelest turn. When he collapses from overwork, Napoleon sells him to a horse slaughterer. Squealer tells the other animals Boxer died peacefully in a hospital.