Boxer (Animal Farm)

Boxer was an enormous horse, nearly eighteen hands high. He was as strong as two ordinary horses combined and had a white stripe down his nose. Although he wasn’t the smartest animal, he was respected for his character and strength (he can only remember the first four letters of the alphabet). He had a motto, “I will work harder,” and a maxim, “Napoleon is always right.”

Boxer fought valiantly during the animals’ revolution. He had kicked a barrel of beer in while they decided that no animal should ever live in the farmhouse.

When the humans came back to Animal Farm in a failed attempt at recapturing it, Boxer was more than ready to fight back. Boxer knocks out the stable boy, making a few of the humans attempt to flee. After the fighting ends in the animals’ favor, he believes to have killed the stable boy, and feels remorseful. Boxer states, “I have no wish to take a life, not even a human life.”

Boxer is highly supportive of Napoleon, but he argues that Snowball fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed. However, he is easily persuaded by Napoleon to believe otherwise.

Though the animals won, Boxer was injured at the Battle of the Windmill. He split his hoof but refused to let his injury deter him from working hard. Against Benjamin and Clover’s wishes, he pushes himself until he collapses from working too hard. Boxer rests until the pigs tell everyone that he is being sent to the hospital, but in reality, he is going to the glue boiler, where he will meet his doom.

Brittany Taylor, Nicola Grandison

2nd Period Pre-AP English I