What Snowball (and the rest of the animals) fail to realize is that Sugarcandy Mountain — a paradise — is as unattainable a place as a farm wholly devoted to the principles of Animalism. As the biblical Moses led his people out of bondage and into the Promised Land, Moses the raven only offers a story about an obviously fictitious place. The fact that the animals are so willing to believe him reveals their wish for a utopia that (in the sky or on the farm) will never be found. Thus, Moses is the novel’s “religious figure,” but in a strictly ironic sense, since Orwell never implies that Moses’ stories better the animals’ condition. As Karl Marx famously said, “Religion … is the opium of the people” — an idea shown in the animals’ acceptance of Moses’ tales.
Once the animals rebel and drive Jones from the farm, they behave as a conquering army retaking its own land and freeing it from the yoke of oppression. All the symbols of Jones’ reign — nose-rings, dog-chains, knives — are tossed into a celebratory bonfire. More important is that the animals attempt to create their own sense of history and tradition by preserving Jones’ house as a museum. Presumably, future animals will visit the house to learn of the terrible luxury in which humans once lived, but, like Sugarcandy Mountain, this world where all animals study their oppressors instead of becoming them is a fantasy. Similarly, the renaming of Manor Farm to Animal Farm suggests the animals’ triumph over their enemy. By renaming the farm, they assume that they will change the kind of place it has become — another example of their optimism and innocence.
The Seven Commandments of Animalism, like the biblical Ten Commandments, are an attempt to completely codify the animals’ behavior to comply with a system of morality. Like the Ten Commandments, the Seven Commandments are direct and straightforward, leaving no room for interpretation or qualification. The fact that they are painted in “great white letters” on the side of the barn suggests the animals’ desire to make these laws permanent — as the permanence of the Ten Commandments is suggested by their being engraved on stone tablets. Of course, like the Ten Commandments, the Seven Commandments are bound to be broken and bound to be toyed with by those looking for a loophole to excuse their wrongdoing.
