It says in Chapter 8 that three hens “came forward and confessed” to trying to assassinate Napoleon on Snowball’s orders. At first this just seems like more propaganda, but unlike with the other animals who got purged there’s no hint that these hens did anything else wrong that would get them in trouble, and Napoleon is said to become paranoid for his safety afterward as he orders the dogs to guard his bed at night and has a pig taste all his food to see if it’s poisoned. So it seems likely that there really was an attempt on his life, and if Snowball survived his exile and knows what Napoleon has done in his absence then it makes sense that he would want to assassinate him. What do you think?
by FireFlareon
3 Comments
If one is paranoid enough, one does not need an _actual_ plot.
See, for example, [the guy who inspired Napoleon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#The_Great_Terror).
No, there was not a plot to kill Napoleon. These developments are supposed to display his increasing paranoia, ironically brought into existence by his own actions. In *Animal Farm*, none (or at least almost none, I’m not quite confident enough to say absolutely none I suppose) of the animals who confess to their crimes actually committed them.
Keep in mind Napoleon is symbolic of Joseph Stalin who employed similar scare tactics to prompt false confessions in the Soviet Union during the time of *Animal Farm*’s initial publication. *Animal Farm* is very specifically a critique of Stalin and the Soviet Union who at the time were lauded as the heroes of WWII and thus excused of many of their evils. Stalin portrayed the Soviet Union under his rule as for the people, to some measure of success, and claimed the USSR a communist state. Of course we know it was not actually communist, but rather totalitarian, with Stalin running it as a dictator with an iron fist. *Animal Farm* was instrumental in displaying the real workings of the USSR to the common people, and as such it has often been called one of the most important works of the 20th century.
First, the text doesn’t actually say that the hens were directed by Snowball to attempt to kill Napoleon. What it says is
>In the middle of the
summer the animals were alarmed to hear that three hens had come
forward and confessed that, **inspired by Snowball**, they had entered into
a plot to murder Napoleon.
Inspiration doesn’t require direct contact or instruction, which is good for Napoleon because that way he doesn’t need to come up with any particular evidence outside of the confessions.
Second, given what Napoleon has already done by this time in the narrative, and his previous “difficulties” with the hens — who represent the kulaks — there’s no particular reason to believe that he’s telling the truth here. It’s almost certainly just an object lesson to the rest of the hens and the continuing demonization of Snowball.
It’s certainly true that the text describes Napoleon taking more elaborate precautions, but there’s nothing to suggest this isn’t driven by his own growing paranoia because he knows that he’s destroying the farm. This particular passage is preceded by descriptions of how 1) many of the animals recalled that one of the commandments was that animals shouldn’t kill other animals, yet they just watched Napoleon murder a lot of fellow animals and 2) the animals are now working longer hours for less food. Napoleon is no doubt scared of rebellion because it would be justified. The killing of the hens is, as mentioned, an object lesson, because the last (only) time there was any substantial rebellion, it was by the hens. They were the only ones who actually stopped working and in fact destroyed their eggs. Even the young pigs did nothing more than talk.