Boxer

Question 1

Introduction

Answer 1

• Throughout the novel symbolises the oblivious proletariat, the individuals who blindly follow Napoleon and the pigs.
• The blind loyalty of Boxer is deemed costly towards the end of the novella, in which he is taken advantage of.
• Despite his great muscles and physical prowess, Boxer is unable to learn more than four letters of the
  alphabet.
• This represents Boxer’s objectification on the farm and how he is exploited for his ability to efficiently complete manual labour without protest.

Question 2

PG 1

Answer 2

His maxim “Napoleon is always right” and “I will work harder” is unrealistic and mechanical
-suggestive of his lack of initiative and greatly depicts the issues of the working class and how they are more susceptible to the indoctrination. 
-Boxer epitomises the working class and their unbelievable strength
-however, Boxer is a vehicle to convey Orwell’s criticism and how their physical strengths surpasses their
mental capacity, which allows them to be exploited.

Question 3

PG 1 Quotes

Answer 3

1. “I will work harder”/ “Napoleon is always right”/ “he had only one real ambition left – to see the windmill well underway before he reaches the end of
   retirement.
2. “The very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will send you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the fox-
   hounds”. {This is a warning which Old Major tells Boxer that he is disposable. As soon as Old Major leaves the farm, Boxer disregards the warning, yet his ignorance is suggestive of his intellectual inferiority, as he was unable to grasp the fact that the pigs are another species for him to worry about.

Question 4

PG 2

Answer 4

-Orwell draws a parallel between being physically strong and intellectually superior, and how there is a requirement to have them both, if they stand alone, the individual risks
being susceptible to the indoctrination of the pigs.
-Orwell portrays his idea, through conveying the physical characteristics to be innately possessed by Boxer, and the
intellectual superiority to be inherently attached to Benjamin.
-However, can be suggested how although “knowledge is power, but only strength is wisdom without
inclination it is deemed as useless.

Question 5

PG 2 Quotes

Answer 5

1. “I do not understand it. I would not have believed that such things could happen on our farm”
2. “An enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together, he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he was universally respected for his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of
   work”
3. “The most terrifying spectacle of all was Boxer, rearing up on his hind legs and striking out with his great iron-shod hoofs like a stallion”

Question 6

PG 3

Answer 6

-Boxer for the rest of the animals is influential and inspirational; his work ethic is what the rest of the animals follow lead with.
-Boxer’s inability to think for himself not only causes him to be affected, it all causes a domino effect, of which the rest of the animals are left without Boxer – who is emblematic of the physical strength the farm withheld.
-His key role in the prosperity of Animal Farm in the early stages and the completion of the windmill is outweighed by his naivety in trusting the pigs and his inability to
generate his own individual thoughts.

Question 7

PG 3 Quotes

Answer 7

1. “The time had been when a few kicks from Boxer’s hoofs would have smashed
   the van to matchwood. But alas! His strength had left him; and in a few moments
   the sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died away.”
2. “I do not understand it. I would not have believed that such things could happen
   on our farm. It must be due to some fault in ourselves. The solution, as I see it, is
   to work harder. From now onwards I shall get up a full hour earlier in the
   mornings.”

Question 8

Conclusion

Answer 8

-Orwell uses Boxer as a character who represents the monumental strength of the proletariat and the potential and the capability for them to transform
situations.
-However, Orwell exploits the idea of physical strength along with the idea of mental/ knowledgeable strength, through conveying the impossibility of an individual to
be powerful without the mixture of the two.
-Therefore, through this, Orwell presents Boxer along with the rest of the farm to have an inevitable and undignified ending.