Boxer in Animal Farm: Character Profile

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Boxer is an enormous cart-horse who possesses the strength of two average horses. The character is one of the most important in George Orwell’s 1945 allegory for Soviet Communism, Animal Farm. Indeed, after the two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, Boxer is arguably the most significant character in Orwell’s fable about Stalinist Russia in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.

Boxer’s character

Although he is not especially intelligent, Boxer is dependable and workmanlike. Along with Clover, Boxer is the most loyal disciple of the pigs and their new ideology of Animalism. (Like Boxer, Clover is a cart-horse: a ‘stout motherly mare approaching middle life’.)

Boxer, who had been a hard-worker even during Mr Jones’s time running the farm, began to work even harder when the animals took over the farm. His personal motto became ‘I will work harder!’; Orwell tells us that he started working as hard as three horses.

Boxer is not especially bright: he tries to learn the alphabet, but cannot get beyond the letter D. He traces out A, B, C, D, in the dust with his hoof, but although he tries hard to remember which letter comes next, he can never remember.

The narrator tells us, ‘On several occasions, indeed, he did learn E, F, G, H, but by the time he knew them, it was always discovered that he had forgotten A, B, C, and D. Finally he decided to be content with the first four letters, and used to write them out once or twice every day to refresh his memory.’

This is significant, because it means that the pigs can easily brainwash Boxer with their new propaganda, gaslighting him into forgetting what he has been told before as soon as the older facts are no longer convenient for the pigs’ purpose.

For example, when Squealer, chief propagandist for the pigs, tells the animals that Snowball had turned traitor during the Battle of the Cowshed – a scandalous rewriting of history in keeping with Stalinist tactics – Boxer challenges Squealer’s revisionist account of Snowball’s part in the battle. He points out that Snowball himself was injured during the battle; why would the other side injure Snowball if he had turned traitor and was, in fact, fighting for them?

But Squealer comes up with the lie that Snowball’s ‘injury’ was prearranged by Mr Jones and the other enemies of the animals on the farm, in order to conceal Snowball’s defection to the other side. Boxer’s memory becomes confused as to what actually happened, but when Squealer tells an even bigger lie – claiming that Snowball was in cahoots with Mr Jones right from the start – Boxer swallows this lie completely, not least because Napoleon has stated it as fact.

He may be limited in education – like the proletarians or labourers he represents in the novel – but Boxer is loyal and hard-working. He wishes to see Snowball’s windmill completed before he retires, after his twelfth birthday. Perhaps because he is not overly endowed with intellect, Boxer believes doggedly in Napoleon and his vision of ‘Animalism’. He is self-sacrificing in his devotion to the cause, eventually working himself into the ground.

However, his loyalty and his lack of critical thinking mean he can be manipulated by the pigs’ propaganda, who use his loyalty to further their own ends, working Boxer into an early grave and then discarding him – by sending him off to the knacker’s yard – when he is too old and infirm to be of practical use on the farm.

Boxer’s fate

As soon as Boxer is no longer able to work, he loses his value to the pigs, who lose no time and no sleep in getting rid of him. When he collapses from exhaustion, the pigs announce that Boxer will be sent to Willingdon to be treated by a vet. In reality, they have arranged for Boxer to be sent to the knacker’s yard: a place where old or injured animals (usually horses) are taken to be killed so that their bodies can be processed and their various body parts reused for various purposes.

Clover, Boxer’s friend and fellow horse, and Benjamin the donkey, realise what is happening and try to warn Boxer. But all Boxer can do is kick ineffectually against the van to free himself, but it is all to no avail. Having worked himself to the point of exhaustion in service to the pigs and their view of Animalism, Boxer has no strength and energy left to save himself, just when he needs it.

Orwell’s point is clear. Boxer represents how downtrodden and poorly treated ordinary workers were under the boot of Soviet Communism. They were lied to, manipulated, and then discarded as soon as they had outlived their function in the new society – and this is exactly the fate that befalls poor Boxer.

Who does Boxer represent?

Boxer is often said to represent the proletariat: ordinary workers, not especially educated, who believe in the new world order that Stalin and the other Communist leaders have presented to them.

Such workers were controlled by Stalin and his Communist party, through being fed propaganda in favour of Communism (rebranded as ‘Animalism’ in Orwell’s novella).

Boxer’s name

Boxer’s name is a clever choice on Orwell’s part: the Boxer rebellion was a revolt which saw Chinese revolutionaries oust foreign exploiters only to be defeated themselves. Boxer’s name, then, foreshadows what will happen as the Rebellion carried out by the animals turns sour and the pigs become as corrupt as the humans they have driven off the farm.