Orwell's words describe, in general, the awe the animals experienced when they realized that the farm was in their control. Orwell wrote the following in chapter two:
But they woke at dawn as usual, and suddenly remembering the glorious thing that had happened, they all raced out into the pasture together. A little way down the pasture there was a knoll that commanded a view of most of the farm. The animals rushed to the top of it and gazed round them in the clear morning light. Yes, it was theirs—everything that they could see was theirs! In the ecstasy of that thought they gambolled round and round, they hurled themselves into the air in great leaps of excitement. They rolled in the dew, they cropped mouthfuls of the sweet summer grass, they kicked up clods of the black earth and snuffed its rich scent. Then they made a tour of inspection of the whole farm and surveyed with speechless admiration the ploughland, the hayfield, the orchard, the pool, the spinney. It was as though they had never seen these things before, and even now they could hardly believe that it was all their own.
Then they 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. After a moment, however, Snowball and Napoleon butted the door open with their shoulders and the animals entered in single file, walking with the utmost care for fear of disturbing anything. They tiptoed from room to room, afraid to speak above a whisper and gazing with a kind of awe at the unbelievable luxury, at the beds with their feather mattresses, the looking-glasses, the horsehair sofa, the Brussels carpet, the lithograph of Queen Victoria over the drawing-room mantelpiece. They were just coming down the stairs when Mollie was discovered to be missing. Going back, the others found that she had remained behind in the best bedroom. She had taken a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs. Jones's dressing-table, and was holding it against her shoulder and admiring herself in the glass in a very foolish manner. The others reproached her sharply, and they went outside. Some hams hanging in the kitchen were taken out for burial, and the barrel of beer in the scullery was stove in with a kick from Boxer's hoof, otherwise nothing in the house was touched. A unanimous resolution was passed on the spot that the farmhouse should be preserved as a museum. All were agreed that no animal must ever live there.
The word 'glorious' in the first line tells us the Rebellion was seen as something magnificent, a spectacular event which filled the animals with wonder and admiration when they realized it had actually happened. The animals just had to see for themselves what they had achieved, which is why they had to get to a higher point to take in all they had won. Once the animals did that, they were overcome with ecstasy and celebrated their success by dancing and jumping. They were excited and just had to experience everything as if it were something new.
Orwell informs us the animals' perspectives change completely. They were like newborn babes. Things which had previously seemed unimportant, boring, or mundane suddenly took on significance. These things were now theirs to own and control. That is why the grass tasted sweeter and the earth smelled richer. The animals explored the entire farm and saw everything with new eyes, unable to believe everything was really theirs.
When they went to the farmhouse, the animals' fear stopped them from entering. The place had achieved a significance which held them in awe, as this was the home of their previous tyrant, the one who controlled their destiny. Once they were inside, the animals displayed an innate respect for the place and did not speak, walking silently from room to room. The house almost achieves the status of a shrine. Orwell describes individual pieces of furniture from the animals' point of view, showing they saw ordinary items as things akin to holy relics.
Orwell then takes a sudden break from the serious mood and relates something very ordinary—Mollie's vanity. This indicates that those with materialistic ideals never see any value in things except when it enhances their own self-worth, a trait later adopted by the pigs to emphasize their arrogance and conceit. We then return to a somber mood when Orwell describes the discovery of the hams and their burial. To some readers, the description may come across as a piece of black humor because humans usually just see a piece of ham as meat. For the animals, however, the hams are evidence of man's brutality. What was left of their slaughtered comrades had to be treated with dignity and had to be interred with solemn respect.
On the whole, Orwell's descriptions accurately emphasize how the animals were overwhelmed by their achievement and their new position on the farm. The animals became masters of their own destinies. The greatest irony, however, is that all their glory would soon be trampled into the very same dust that they, at this point, admire so much. The corrupt and greedy pigs will betray the other animals and systematically destroy everything they achieved.
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