Animal Farm Essay

Essay Question: “Describe a character or individual that you disliked or admired in the written text. Explain how you feeling towards this character helped you to understand the text as a whole.

In the novel “Animal Farm” written by George Orwell a character I admired was Boxer. I this character helped me understand the book due to his constant desire to succeed, his never faltering strength, his work that never stopped and his reliability towards Napoleon. I understood the novel better through Boxer because of his blindness to the dictatorship of Napoleon, and how every animal related to this. My feelings towards him grew as he was betrayed and used more throughout the novel.

Working hard all year round Boxer was the strongest and most reliable worker on the farm, no matter what the weather was like you would always see Boxer up and hauling stone or other objects to places on the farm to get things done faster, “Boxer would even come out at nights and work for an hour or two on his own by the light of the harvest moon.” By the end of the book, Boxer has worked so much that he is injured, during the period of injury Boxer is sold by Napoleon to a glue factory, in the doing of this it increased my emotional connection with Boxer as I thought of how vulnerable he was. the author is showing us that no matter how hard we work when we are no longer needed we can be gotten rid of. After Boxer was betrayed I saw better that the novel was showing me how blind we can be to people to treat us poorly

Heroically, Boxer always wanted to succeed. Throughout the novel we saw Boxer trying to impress Napoleon with his work and his morals, we never failed to hear Boxer’s moto “Napoleon is always right” whenever someone disagreed with what Napoleon had said, in his eyes Boxer was one of his most faithful workers. Despite working hard in the construction of both windmills Boxer also won himself a medal after the battle of the cowshed, proving to us that his desire to succeed went beyond his work ethic. After all of Boxers work Napoleon still did not see him as anything other than a tool he could use to get what he wanted. By using Boxer in this way from a readers point of view I felt the need to help Boxer and so I was more aware of what I was reading. Using these times we can recall when we, the reader wanted to impress someone else to the point where we were blind to any negativities that might have come from this

Boxer, who worked till his death, never challenged Napoleons requests. During his life time on the farm Boxer was shown to be the strongest animals on the farm, but only physically, “Boxer, whose strength seemed equal to that of all the rest of the animals put together.” throughout the novel we see many instances where Boxers strength is limited to his mental ability, after any decision is made, whether or not Boxer agreed with these decisions, Boxer always waved them as Napoleon always being right. As I had grown close with the character of Boxer I saw just how blind someone can be from the truth. The author used Boxers commitment to Napoleon to show us that despite being strong physically we can always be weak to our minds.

In conclusion, Boxers passive nature throughout the course of the book helped me to understand the book through the eyes of animals that were being used by Napoleon’s cruelness. By having an emotional connection with Boxer I saw much of the story either through his own eyes or as someone who wanted to protect him, or watch over him in some way.