SOURCE: Patai, Daphne. “Animal Farm Exposes Orwell's Sexism.” In Readings on Animal Farm, edited by Terry O'Neill, pp. 116-26. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1998.

In the following essay, originally published in 1984, Patai provides a feminist interpretation of Animal Farm.

Although Animal Farm is mentioned in scores of studies of Orwell, no critic has thought it worth a comment that the pigs who betray the revolution, like the pig who starts it, are not just pigs but boars, that is, uncastrated male pigs kept for breeding purposes. Old Major, the “prize Middle White boar” who has called a meeting to tell the other animals about his dream, is initially described in terms that establish him as patriarch of this world: “He was twelve years old and had lately grown rather stout, but he was still a majestic-looking pig, with a wise and benevolent appearance in spite of the fact...