Benjamin

Benjamin is a donkey in George Orwell's 1945 novel Animal Farm. He is also the oldest of all the animals (he is alive in the last scene of the novel). He is less straightforward than most characters in the novel, and a number of interpretations have been put forward to which social class he represents as regards to the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union. (Animal Farm is an allegory for the evolution of Communism in Russia, with each animal representing a different social class, e.g. Boxer represents the working class.) Benjamin also represents the old people of Russia because he remembers the old laws that have been changed.