Animal Farm

Old Major

Old Major is the revered patriarch of the farm whose visionary speech ignites the animals’ hope for a fairer life. As a prize boar respected for his wisdom and experience, he articulates the animals’ grievances and lays out guiding principles that inspire their collective movement, making him the philosophical catalyst of the story.

Napoleon

Napoleon is the pig who rises as a principal leader among the animals after they claim independence, using calculation and presence to steer the farm’s direction. He embodies the allure and dangers of centralized power, shaping the community’s rules, ideals, and daily life while illustrating how revolutionary promises can be bent to serve authority.

Snowball

Snowball is an idealistic, articulate pig who helps organize the animals after the rebellion, promoting education, planning improvements for the farm, and giving persuasive speeches. As a strategist and visionary, he becomes a central figure in shaping the farm’s early policies, and his ideological rivalry with another leader drives much of the story’s political tension.

Squealer

Squealer is the regime’s chief propagandist on Animal Farm, a slick talker who spins, revises, and reframes events to keep the other animals compliant. Gifted with persuasive rhetoric and quick justifications, he translates the leadership’s policies into palatable slogans, shaping opinion and suppressing dissent. He embodies the power of propaganda and the manipulation of truth in authoritarian systems.

Boxer

Boxer is the farm’s powerhouse and moral center, a humble worker whose immense strength and unwavering dedication inspire others. Guided by simple, loyal maxims and a deep belief in the collective cause, he embodies the virtues—and the vulnerabilities—of the common laborer in the novel’s political allegory.

Clover

Clover is a loyal cart-horse who serves as a nurturing, commonsense presence among the animals, often looking after the weaker and reminding others of the farm’s original ideals. Through her quiet observations and uneasy questions, she embodies the conscientious, working-class caregiver whose decency highlights shifts in the farm’s moral compass, even when she lacks the power to challenge events directly.

Benjamin

Benjamin is the farm’s cynical observer—taciturn, sharp-minded, and distrustful of slogans or promises. He remembers life before the revolution, befriends the hardworking Boxer, and watches events unfold with weary skepticism, embodying the dangers of apathy and the burden of hard-earned wisdom without often stepping forward himself.

Mollie

Mollie is a vain, pleasure-loving carriage horse who craves ribbons, sugar, and admiration. Her fondness for personal comfort and attention sets her at odds with the farm’s spirit of hard work and equality, making her a symbol of self-interest and superficiality amid a collective cause.

Moses

Moses is the farm’s storytelling raven, a pet of the humans who spins enticing tales of a paradise called Sugarcandy Mountain. Serving as a symbolic mouthpiece for comforting beliefs that can pacify discontent, he influences the animals’ attitudes and provides a countercurrent to revolutionary fervor without taking part in the hard work himself.

Muriel

Muriel is a literate goat who quietly helps the less-educated animals by reading and interpreting written rules and notices on the farm. Observant and conscientious, she serves as a modest voice of awareness, sensing when things shift but lacking the power to challenge events directly, embodying the concerns of the moderately educated working class.

Mr. Jones

Mr. Jones is the human owner of Manor Farm whose negligence and alcoholism create the conditions for the animals’ rebellion; he serves as the story’s initial human antagonist and symbolizes inept, exploitative leadership that the animals seek to overthrow.

Mr. Frederick

Mr. Frederick is the tough, shrewd owner of Pinchfield Farm and a neighboring rival to Animal Farm. Known for lawsuits and hard bargaining, he represents a ruthless authoritarian power and serves as a foil to the more easygoing Mr. Pilkington. His dealings with the animals highlight themes of opportunism, propaganda, and the dangers of trusting expedient alliances without revealing major plot turns.

Mr. Pilkington

Mr. Pilkington is the easy‑going owner of Foxwood, a neighboring farm. As a complacent, gentleman‑farmer type, he represents the traditional British ruling class and serves as a foil to the tougher, more cunning Mr. Frederick. His interactions with Animal Farm chart the animals’ shifting relationships with the outside human world and underscore the book’s political allegory without dominating the plot.

Mr. Whymper

Mr. Whymper is a human solicitor who serves as the farm’s intermediary with the outside world, arranging trade and lending the animals’ regime a veneer of legitimacy. His presence marks the farm’s growing entanglement with human commerce and politics, highlighting themes of pragmatism, compromise, and gradual moral drift without delving into plot-specific revelations.

Bluebell

Bluebell is one of the farm’s dogs who becomes a mother early in the story, and her family is drawn into the political changes that follow the animals’ revolt. Though she seldom speaks or acts independently on the page, her circumstances illustrate how ordinary creatures can be used by emerging leaders to strengthen control. Her presence underscores themes of loyalty, authority, and the manipulation of the vulnerable.

Jessie

Jessie is one of the farm’s dogs and a quiet observer of the animals’ rebellion and its aftermath. As a loyal worker and later a protective mother, she provides a ground-level view of shifting leadership and rules, highlighting how ordinary creatures experience the farm’s political changes.

Pincher

Pincher appears among the original dogs on Manor Farm and serves mainly as a background figure who helps establish the farm’s canine presence and hierarchy. His inclusion, alongside the other dogs, contributes to the story’s social ecosystem and foreshadows the importance dogs will later assume as instruments of power, even though Pincher himself is not developed as an individual character.

Minimus

Minimus is the farm’s poet and songwriter, a talented pig recruited to craft anthems and verses that praise the regime and guide the animals’ feelings, symbolizing how art and culture can be harnessed as tools of propaganda.