Any of this seem familiar?BoxerFirst appearance
Animal FarmLast appearance
Animal Farm (Only Appearance)Created by
George OrwellVoiced by
Maurice Denham (
1954 film)
Paul Scofield (
1999 film)InformationSpecies
HorseGenderMaleOccupationLaborer at Animal Farm
Boxer is described as a hardworking, but naive and ignorant
cart horse in
George Orwell's
Animal Farm. He is shown as the farm's most dedicated and loyal laborer. Boxer serves as an
allegory for the
Russian working-class who helped to oust
Tsar Nicholas and establish the
Soviet Union, but were eventually betrayed by the
Bolsheviks.
Boxer is compassionate and dim-witted. He is described as "faithful and strong";
[1] and he believes any problem can be solved if he works harder.
[2]
Boxer can only remember four letters of the alphabet at a time, but sees the importance of education and aspires to learn the rest of the alphabet during his retirement (which never happens). Boxer is a loyal supporter of
Napoleon, and he listens to everything the self-appointed ruler of the farm says and assumes, sometimes with doubt, that everything Napoleon tells the farm animals is true, hence "Napoleon is always right."
Boxer's strength plays a huge part in keeping Animal Farm together prior to his death: the rest of the animals trusted in it to keep their spirits high during the long and hard laborious winters. Boxer was the only close friend of
Benjamin, the cynical donkey.
Boxer fights in the Battle of the Cowshed and the Battle of the Windmill, but is upset when he thinks he has killed a stable boy when, in fact, he had only stunned him. When Boxer defends
Snowball's reputation from
Squealer's
revisionism,
the pigs designate him as a target for the
Great Purge, but he easily out muscles the dog executioners, sparing them at Napoleon's request. When he collapses from overwork, the pigs say they have sent him to a
veterinarian, when they actually have sent him to the
knacker's yard to be slaughtered, in exchange for money to buy a case of whiskey for the pigs to drink. Benjamin, who is described as "devoted to Boxer," recognizes that the dogcart that Boxer is taken away in is the knacker's; however, Squealer deceives the other animals by saying that the dogcart was possessed by a veterinarian who failed to repaint the dogcart. Squealer concocts a sentimental tale of the death of Boxer, saying that he was given the best medical care possible, paid for by the "compassionate" Napoleon.
During
Old Major's speech, which inspired the principles of
Animalism, a specific reference is made to how Boxer would be turned into glue under
Farmer Jones' rule, thus implying that it would not happen to him under Animalism. "You, Boxer, the very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will send you to the knacker, he will cut your throat and boil you down for the fox-hounds