Old Major
Fictional characterWikipedia
5
MENTIONS
3
EPISODES
2
PODCASTS
Search complete. 5 mentions across 3 episodes found for "Old Major".
Sep 23, 2026
speaker_1ADVERTISER
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speaker_2NARRATOR
Three nights later, old Major died peacefully in his sleep.
speaker_2NARRATOR
His body was buried at the foot of the orchard.
speaker_2NARRATOR
This was early in March.
speaker_2NARRATOR
He was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point, he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, which was somehow very persuasive.
speaker_2NARRATOR
The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white.
speaker_2NARRATOR
These three had elaborated Old Major's teachings into a complete system of thought, to which they gave the name of Animalism.
speaker_2NARRATOR
Several nights a week, after Mr. Jones was asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn and expounded the principles of Animalism to the others.
speaker_2NARRATOR
If she could have spoken her thoughts— it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race.
speaker_2NARRATOR
These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when Old Major first stirred them to rebellion.
speaker_2NARRATOR
If she herself had had any picture of the future— It had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's speech.
speaker_2NARRATOR
Instead, she did not know why, they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.
Alex WolinetzHOST
a phone.
Alex WolinetzHOST
That's old major in the 1990s.
Alex WolinetzHOST
Yeah, see,
Rusteen HonardoostHOST
that's what it should be like.
8 MINS LATER
Ian RhineGUEST
But what's your guys' history with Animal Farms?
Alex WolinetzHOST
So I'll just give a very quick summary, which is that there's a farm in England owned by Mr. Jones.
Alex WolinetzHOST
In that farm, there is a old pig named Old Major, who is basically the Lenin slash Marx of the metaphor, who gives the animals rules about how they could... started a revolution in which it's, you know, four legs are better than two, just sort of basic communist rules.
Alex WolinetzHOST
At this point, he dies.