# Animal Farm: windmill

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-farm-windmill/26575>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 23, 2000, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-farm-windmill/26575 "2000-07-23T22:07:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2000, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-farm-windmill/26575/1 "2000-07-23T22:07:02Z")

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Did the windmill the animals were building in _Animal Farm_ represent anything in particular? Collectivization of agriculture? Industrialization? Making the New Soviet Man and Woman?

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**Author:** ![tcburnett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@tcburnett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tcburnett)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2000, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-farm-windmill/26575/2 "2000-07-23T22:19:48Z")

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It is an oblique reference to Miguel de Cervantes whose two original windmill tossers, Don Coyote and Sancho Panda were left out of the book.

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2000, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-farm-windmill/26575/3 "2000-07-23T22:22:02Z")

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\>\> Don Coyote and Sancho Panda

You crack me up 🙂

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2000, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-farm-windmill/26575/4 "2000-07-23T22:28:00Z")

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Some say it represents the USSR’s first five-year plan (1928).

Some say it represents the Revolutionary Spirit.

I say it represents the asinine notion that everything in every novel has to **represent** something.

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**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2000, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-farm-windmill/26575/5 "2000-07-23T22:39:32Z")

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I’ve always assumed that the two attacks on the windmill represented World War I and II, and the windmill itself the economy and industrial infrastructure.

Also, four legs are good, but two legs are _better_. (Wings counting as legs).