How Orwell presents Boxer, and how the character develops across the text: the strong, loyal and trusting horse whose hard work ends in betrayal.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'as strong as any two ordinary horses put together', 'he was not of first-rate intelligence', 'universally respected for his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of work', 'I will work harder!', 'he seemed more like three horses than one', 'Boxer could not get beyond the letter D.', 'I have no wish to take life, not even human life', 'If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right.', 'Napoleon is always right', 'It must be due to some fault in ourselves.', 'for the first time it occurred to him that he was eleven years old', 'It is my lung', 'his strength had left him', 'Boxer's face, with the white stripe down his nose, appeared at the small window at the back of the van'.
Boxer's loyalty and strength, the one time he questions Squealer, and how his trust is used against him.
Context: Boxer as the loyal working class and the model worker Stakhanov.
For Edexcel's essay on this text, link each point to its context and the writer's purpose, which earn as many marks as knowledge of the text (16 of 40); language analysis earns no marks there.
