With his tales of the "promised land" to which all animals retire after death, Moses is the novel's "religious" figure. Like his biblical counterpart, Moses offers his listeners descriptions of a place — Sugarcandy Mountain — where they can live free from oppression and hunger. At first, the pigs find him irksome, since they want the animals to believe that Animal Farm is a paradise and fear that the animals will be prompted by Moses' tales to seek a better place. However, as conditions on the farm worsen, the pigs allow Moses to stay because his tales offer the animals the promise of rest after a weary, toilsome life. As Karl Marx famously stated, "Religion is the opium of the people," and Moses' tales of Sugarcandy Mountain likewise serve as an opiate to the animals' misery.
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