Chapter 10 Chapter Eight The Two Pigs Also Express Their Opinions

Nobody works on Sunday.Breakfast was an hour later than usual, and there was a ritual after the meal, every week without exception.The first part of the ceremony is the raising of the flag.In the harness-room Snowball found Mrs. Jones's old green tablecloth, on which he had painted a hoof and a horn with white paint.It is this flag that is hoisted on the flagpole every week on the farm estate.Snowball explained that green represents the green fields of England, while the hooves and horns symbolize the ultimate overthrow of human beings and the inevitable rise of the animal republic in the future.After the flag is hoisted the animals flood into the big barn for a general meeting called the Great Rally.The big assembly formulates the work plan for the coming week, puts forward various proposals, and discusses them.It was always the pigs who made the motions; the other animals knew how to vote, but they couldn't think of any of their own.The most active speakers in the discussion were Snowball and Napoleon.But the animals all found that the two of them never agreed: one made any motion, the other definitely opposed it.Even after all had agreed to set aside a small field behind the orchard as a retirement home for those incapacitated animals (a decision that no one could object to), the two pigs expressed their views on the retirement ages for the different animals, The debate was inextricably linked.Great assemblies always ended with the singing of "Beast Songs of England."Sunday afternoons are for animal entertainment.

The harness room was turned into a headquarters by several pigs for their use only.Here, every night, the pigs learned blacksmithing, carpentry, and other useful trades from books.The books were brought from the past owner's house.Snowball was also busily organizing the other animals into what he called Animal Committees.His interest in doing this kind of thing is so great that he is almost indefatigable.He organized egg-laying committees for the hens, a clean-tailed league for the cows, a whitening wool campaign for the sheep, a feral gay re-education committee aimed at taming rats and hares, and more.Naturally, he also established some groups such as reading classes and writing classes.Overall, these plans have failed.Take the plan to tame wild animals, for example, which aborted as soon as it was implemented.The way of life of wild animals is still the same as in the past and cannot be changed.If you show them a little generosity, they will push an inch.Cat joined the re-education committee and was very active for a while.One day some animals saw her sitting on the roof talking with some sparrows.The sparrow kept a certain distance from her, and she could not catch it.She said to the sparrows that all the animals are gay now, and if any sparrow wants to, it might as well approach her and stay on her paw for a while.But the sparrows still dare not approach.

But the literacy class was a huge success.By autumn, nearly all the animals on the farm knew some words. As for those pigs, they have long been able to read and write very proficiently.The dogs also learned to read very well, but they were not interested in reading other than reading the Seven Precepts.Muriel the goat can read better than dogs. Sometimes he picks up a scrap of newspaper from the garbage dump and reads it to his companion at night.Benjamin can read books as skillfully as a pig, but he never uses his strengths.He said that, as far as he knew, there was nothing worth reading at all.Clover has learned 26 letters, but has never been able to learn pinyin.A boxer can't learn the fourth letter D after that.He could draw the letters A, B, C, and D on the ground with a big hoof, and then he would stand there and stare at the four letters with his ears closed, sometimes shaking his forehead hair.He tried desperately to think what the next letter would be, but couldn't.Occasionally, he also learned the letters E, F, G, and H a ​​few times, but after he learned these letters, he forgot the first A, B, C, and D.In the end he decided to just remember four letters.He writes it once or twice a day, in order to keep it in his mind forever.Molly was only willing to learn to spell the five letters of her name, and not the rest.She arranged the name neatly with a few twigs, decorated it with a flower or two, and went round and round, fascinated by herself.

None of the other animals on the farm who learned the A word learned the second letter.Another point is that stupid animals like sheep, chickens, and ducks cannot even memorize the seven commandments.After much deliberation, Snowball finally declared that the meaning of the Seven Commandments could actually be summed up in one sentence: "Four legs are good, two legs are bad."He said that this sentence contains the basic truth of animalism.Whoever can thoroughly grasp this sentence will be safe from the influence of others.The birds objected at first, because they too seemed to have two legs, but Snowball proved to them that this was not the case.

Snowball said: "Comrades, the wings of birds are propellers, not manipulators, so they should be regarded as legs. The symbol of man is the hand, and the hand is the organ by which man commits various crimes."