What Are The Seven Commandments Of Animal Farm

The Seven Commandments of Animal Farm: A Complete Guide to Orwell’s Moral Code

In George Orwell’s seminal allegorical novella Animal Farm, the Seven Commandments serve as the unshakeable constitutional foundation for the animal society that rebels against human tyranny. And these simple, declarative laws, painted on the barn wall, represent the core principles of Animalism—a philosophy intended to ensure equality, peace, and prosperity for all creatures on the farm. Understanding the original Seven Commandments, their gradual perversion, and their ultimate fate is essential to decoding Orwell’s profound critique of totalitarianism, propaganda, and the betrayal of the working class. Still, the narrative’s power lies in the systematic, incremental alteration of these commandments by the ruling pig elite, mirroring the corruption of revolutionary ideals. This article will dissect each commandment, trace its mutation, and connect it to the historical events of the Soviet Union that Orwell so masterfully satirized The details matter here..

The Original Seven Commandments: The Blueprint for Utopia

Following the successful expulsion of Mr. Even so, jones, the animals, led by the pigs Snowball and Napoleon, establish a new society. The principles of Animalism, distilled by Snowball into seven simple rules, are painted in large white letters on the barn wall for all to see and memorize But it adds up..

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

These commandments are presented as absolute, universal, and non-negotiable. And they are designed to prevent the return of human oppression and to create a society where animal interests are critical. Their simplicity makes them accessible to every creature, from the clever pigs to the hardworking but dim-witted cart-horse, Boxer, who adopts the personal maxim: “I will work harder Simple, but easy to overlook..

The Erosion of the Law: How the Commandments Were Altered

The story’s central tragedy unfolds as the pigs, assuming the role of the intelligentsia, begin to exploit their position. They subtly reinterpret and then physically alter the commandments to justify their increasingly human-like privileges and abuses of power. This process is a masterclass in the manipulation of language and history The details matter here..

1. The First and Second Commandments: Redefining the Enemy and the Friend. Initially, all two-legged beings (humans) are enemies, and all four-legged or winged creatures are friends. This binary is first compromised when the pigs begin trading with neighboring human farms. To justify this, the commandment is mentally adjusted by the sheep, who chant the new version: “Four legs good, two legs better.” The final, physical alteration comes after the pigs are seen walking on two legs. The commandment is changed to: “Four legs good, two legs better.” The absolute enemy is now a potential partner, and the core identity of “animal” versus “human” is blurred.

2. The Third and Fourth Commandments: The Corruption of Privilege. The prohibitions against clothing and beds are among the first to fall. The pigs move into the farmhouse and sleep in the beds, prompting a furious Squealer to explain that a bed is merely a place to rest and that the pigs need rest to manage the farm’s intellectual labor. The commandment is changed from “No animal shall sleep in a bed” to “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.” Similarly, the pigs begin wearing Mr. Jones’s discarded clothes. The commandment evolves into “No animal shall wear clothes except for the pigs,” and finally vanishes when the pigs are fully dressed, as the original wall is whitewashed over.

3. The Fifth Commandment: The Allure of Alcohol. The discovery of the farmhouse whiskey leads to a drunken orgy among the pigs. When the other animals discover this hypocrisy, Squealer announces that the commandment was always “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess,” a lie that the dim-witted animals cannot confidently refute. This establishes a critical pattern: the pigs change the law after breaking it, then use their control of information to claim it was always that way.

4. The Sixth Commandment: The Sanctity of Life Violated. “No animal shall kill any other animal” is the most sacred law, a direct repudiation of the cruelty under Jones. Its violation is the most shocking. Napoleon uses his trained dogs to execute confessed traitors (the hens, the animals who supposedly conspired with Snowball). The commandment is then altered to “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause,” legally sanctioning state murder. The final, horrific change occurs when the pigs begin executing animals for trivial reasons, and the commandment is simply removed from the wall.

5. The Seventh and Final Commandment: The Ultimate Betrayal. The principle “All animals are equal” is the revolution’s soul. Its destruction is the story’s climax. After the pigs host a dinner with human farmers, playing cards and toasting, the animals outside look through the window. They can no longer tell pig from man. The next day, Squealer gathers the animals and points to the single remaining commandment, now painted on the wall

and reads aloud the final, stark revision: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This nonsensical, self-contradictory phrase is the ultimate logical perversion, a verbal mask for the naked hierarchy that now exists. The principle of equality is not merely broken; it is linguistically disassembled to justify its opposite. The animals, their memories short and their critical faculties dulled by years of propaganda, can only stare in confused silence. The revolutionary ideal has been completely inverted, not by open decree but by a slow, insidious erosion of language and law.

This systematic dismantling of the Seven Commandments reveals the novel’s central mechanism of tyranny. Even so, squealer’s role is crucial here: he is the architect of “doublethink,” presenting each betrayal as a restoration of the true, original intent. The pigs do not simply abandon the rules; they methodically twist their meaning, exploiting the other animals’ inability to recall the original texts or challenge the authoritative reinterpretations. The pattern is always the same—transgression, followed by retrospective alteration of the law, enforced by the threat of violence (the dogs) and the control of information. The commandments, intended as an immutable moral code, become a malleable tool for the consolidation of power, demonstrating that in a system where language is corrupted, there can be no safeguard against oppression That's the whole idea..

The tragedy is not merely that the pigs become like the humans they overthrew; it is that the very concepts of “animal” and “human,” “good” and “bad,” “equal” and “unequal,” are rendered meaningless. Practically speaking, the final scene, where the animals peer through the window and can no longer distinguish pig from man, is the visual culmination of this semantic and moral collapse. Plus, the revolution’s core identity has been utterly consumed. Orwell’s conclusion is therefore profoundly pessimistic: without an informed, vigilant citizenry capable of holding power accountable to fixed, comprehensible principles, any revolution, no matter how idealistic its beginnings, is doomed to replicate the very injustices it sought to destroy. The farm’s gates, once opened to freedom, have merely swung shut on a different, but no less cruel, form of despotism.