What Role Does Benjamin Play In Animal Farm

animal who rarely talks. He is in fact the oldest animal on the farm, especially so after many

I chose the character Benjamin, the cryptic old donkey. Benjamin is a strange old years have passed when the pigs have practically become human, when nearly all the animals from the original Rebellion have died. None of the animals know what to make of Boxer, because he never answers their questions, never smiles or laughs, and never does more or less work than required. My first symbol is a kind of Rubik's Cube. It represents how much of a puzzling character Benjamin is. He talks very little, and while he helps the other animals in the fields, he doesn't help them when they want him to read the commandments to them. He never explains himself and

What's more is that he could read extremely well, but for whatever reason, rarely used his talent. He always refused to read the commandments to the other animals, and we never see him reading anything else because he said there was never anything else worth reading. Benjamin never taught any of the other animals to read, or ever passed on his gift, even to Boxer, whom he clearly cared for deeply. The only time he consented to read to the other animals was after many of the original animals had died, and Clover noticed that the commandment wall looked very different, and wanted to know what it now said. Even though with his gifts of reading and acute reasoning he could have been as powerful as the pigs, he chose to lead his life simply as he always

The book Animal Farm says that "He seldom talked, and when he did, it was usually to make some cynical remark--for instance he would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but he would sooner have no tail, and no flies." Whenever he was questioned about how he felt, he only replied with "Donkeys live a long time. You've never seen a dead donkey." Benjamin never laughed with the other animals, or celebrated with them, because he never saw any reason to, according to him. While he was intelligent enough to read, he never did except when he needed to, saying that there wasn't anything worth reading. "Benjamin was the oldest animal on the farm, and the worst tempered." He was always grumpy when we heard about him, and never seemed to smile, or be happy, only taking life as he saw