Boxer (Animal Farm)

Boxer is a fictional character in George Orwell's Animal Farm. He is the farm's most hard-working and loyal laborer. Boxer serves as an allegory for the Russian working-class who helped to oust the Tsar Nicholas and establish the Soviet Union, but were eventually betrayed by the Stalinists. The most sympathetically drawn character in the novel, Boxer epitomizes all of the best qualities of the exploited working classes: dedication, loyalty, and a huge capacity for labor. He also, however, suffers from what Orwell saw as the working class’s major weaknesses: a naïve trust in the good intentions of the intelligentsia and an inability to recognize even the most blatant forms of political corruption. Exploited by the pigs as much or more than he had been by Mr. Jones, Boxer represents all of the invisible labor that undergirds the political drama being carried out by the elites. Boxer’s pitiful death at a glue factory dramatically illustrates the extent of the pigs’ betrayal. It may also, however, speak to the specific significance of Boxer himself: before being carted off, he serves as the force that holds Animal Farm together.

Boxer fights bravely in the Battle of the Cowshed, and the Battle of the Windmill, but is upset when he thinks he has killed a stable lad when, in fact, he had only stunned him. When Boxer defends Snowball's reputation from Squealer's revisionism, the pigs designate the workhorse as a target for the Great Purge, but he easily out muscles the dog executioners, sparing them at Napoleon's request. His death shows how far the pigs are willing to go. When he collapses from overwork, the pigs say they have sent him to a veterinarian, when they sent him to the knacker's yard to be slaughtered, in exchange for money to buy a case of whiskey for the pigs. A strong and loyal draft horse, Boxer played a huge part in keeping the Farm together prior to his death, and was the only close friend of Benjamin, the cynical donkey.

During Old Major's speech, which inspired the principles of Animalism, a specific reference is made to how he would be turned into glue under Jones' rule, thus implying that it would not happen to him under Animalism. This is possibly a further decline from Animalism to Napoleon's government."You, Boxer, the very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will send you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the foxhounds." -Animal farm Chapter I p 5.

Boxer is quite dim and can only remember the first four letters of the alphabet. Boxer is a loyal supporter of Napoleon; he listens to everything he says and assumes, sometimes with doubt, that everything Napoleon tells the farm animals is true: "If Napoleon says it, it must be right."

He has been described as "faithful and strong"; he believes any problem can be solved if he works harder. His constant slogan, "I will work harder", may be a reference to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, in which Jurgis, an overworked and mistreated worker, has the same slogan.