Benjamin (Animal Farm)

Benjamin is a donkey in George Orwell's 1945 novella Animal Farm. He is the oldest of all the animals and lives to the end of the novella. While Animal Farm is an allegory for the evolution of Communism in Russia, he is less straightforward than most characters in the novella, and a number of interpretations have been put forward as to which social class he represents in the context of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union. Benjamin also represents the old people of historical Russia, as he remembers the old laws that have been changed.