Chapter 2
Rung 2
INTRODUCTION
forbidden threshold of power
The farmhouse is consecrated as an untouchable museum, establishing it as the symbolic boundary between animal freedom and human corruption.
filed back to the farm buildings and halted in silence outside the door of the farmhouse. That was theirs too, but they were frightened to go inside.
Chapter 4
Rung 3
CLIMAX
strategic resource of revolutionary authority
The farmhouse transforms from museum-relic into an active arsenal of power, its contents weaponised to defend and consolidate the pigs' command.
had studied an old book of Julius Caesar's campaigns which he had found in the farmhouse, was in charge of the defensive operations.
Chapter 6
Rung 3
ESCALATION
residence of privilege and concealment
The farmhouse contains the pigs' usurpation of human comfort, and Squealer's rhetoric works to suppress the animals' memory of the prohibition against living there.
It was about this time that the pigs suddenly moved into the farmhouse and took up their residence there.
Chapter 8
Rung 3
ESCALATION
sealed sanctum of tyrannical excess
The farmhouse reveals and then recontains Napoleon's mounting corruption — first through the spectacle of money, then through the noise of drunken singing that it cannot fully suppress.
the path on his bicycle, flung it down in the yard and rushed straight into the farmhouse. The next moment a choking roar of rage sounded from Napoleon's apartments.
Chapter 10
Rung 4
RESOLUTION
completed transformation into human manor
The farmhouse closes the arc by revealing that the revolutionary threshold has been wholly reversed — pigs walk out of it as men and the animals cannot distinguish oppressor from oppressor.
In the evening he returned to the farmhouse himself, but, as it was warm weather, told the sheep to stay where they were.