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How would you give an account of the gathering of the animals in the big barn to hear old Major's speech at the beginning of Animal Farm?

Old Major's speech, given shortly before he dies, is key to understanding the motives behind the animal uprising that leads to the establishment of Animal Farm. Basically, Old Major argues man is at the root of all the problems the animals face. He says, "man is the only creature that consumes without producing," living instead off the labor and the flesh of other animals. All the milk produced by the cows and all the eggs...

Old Major's speech, given shortly before he dies, is key to understanding the motives behind the animal uprising that leads to the establishment of Animal Farm. Basically, Old Major argues man is at the root of all the problems the animals face. He says, "man is the only creature that consumes without producing," living instead off the labor and the flesh of other animals. All the milk produced by the cows and all the eggs laid by the hens are consumed by men. Jones, the farmer who owns Manor Farm, will use up the animals and literally discard them when they are no longer profitable. Old Major says even Boxer, the powerful and reliable workhorse, will be sold to the knacker, who will kill him and "boil [him] down for the foxhounds" when he gets old. This statement later proves highly ironic—Napoleon, not Jones, winds up selling Boxer to the knacker, proving how much the ideals of Old Major have been corrupted. In any case, Old Major advocates an uprising, one which will put the animals in charge of their own futures and will allow them to benefit from their own labor. At the end, he teaches them a song, "Beasts of England," which will become a sort of anthem for the animals as they try to put Old Major's ideas into action. It must be understood as well that Old Major is meant to recall the ideas of Karl Marx, whose ideas about class conflict and exploitation of working-class people were instrumental in the development of revolutionary socialism. Animal Farm is intended to parody the establishment of a socialist state in the Soviet Union. 

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