Original artwork, not a still
Animal Farm • 1945
Four legs good, two legs bad.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The slogan is Animalism flattened until a sheep can chant it, and Orwell's point is how quickly a principle becomes noise. The sheep use it to shout down anyone who objects, and when the pigs rise on two legs they simply change one word. Its rhythm made it shorthand for any mindless party chant, and it is still the example people reach for when a slogan replaces thought.
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In context
Spoilers for Animal FarmShow the scene
Animal Farm was published by Secker and Warburg on 17 August 1945. In chapter 3 the animals struggle to learn the Seven Commandments, and the stupider ones, the sheep, hens and ducks, cannot memorise them. Snowball declares that they can be boiled down to one maxim, "Four legs good, two legs bad", and the birds are told that a wing counts as a leg. It is painted above the Commandments on the barn wall. The sheep then bleat it for hours, and later use it to drown out debate. In chapter 10 the sheep change it to "two legs better".
Sources (2)
- Animal Farm (Project Gutenberg Australia)Chapter 3 (Snowball and the maxim); chapters 5, 7 and 10 (sheep drowning debate; two legs better)Reference checked
- Wikipedia: Animal FarmInfobox and leadReference checked
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