Why were the pigs so into improving production at the farm?

Question

The animal farm by George Orwell.

I don't think there was a real reason to build the windmill, they were just fine working a little on the day and relaxing at night.

Answer 1

If you read Animal Farm as an allegory (as some do, but as Orwell has often denied), the pigs were the representatives of the Proletariat, who claimed to work in the interest of the common people (Proletariat - ie, other animals) by ushering them towards goals they didn't know they wanted, and ended up killing most of the animals in the process.

There are frightening parallels in history. Mao decided that he wanted China to be the world's largest producer of steel, so he ordered a smelter to be built in every town above a certain population. Peasants were ordered to melt down their tools, and Mao visited by train to smile at the beaming steel beams. This great step forward was followed by the deaths of many peasants, who starved because they couldn't harvest enough food from their fields.

Answer 2

Why would pigs be concerned about improving production at the

farm?

Answer 3

Maybe they had nothing better than this to do, poor pigs!

Answer 4

If you accept that Animal Farm is an allegory for the history of the Soviet Union, the windmill building represents the extreme push towards industrialization through the Soviet's "Five Year Plans".  Orwell's point is while the Soviet leadership in the early years were jealous of other countries' states of development, and saw rapid industrialization as a way to correct this, the common Russian was generally satisfied with an agricultural-based society.