Book Essay: Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies
In 1887 Lord Acton wrote in a letter to Bishop Mande
ll Creighton, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." It has often been no
ted that this is the primary theme in both Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies. In addition, these boo
ks share two sub-themes related to this primary theme. One sub-theme is that people will often abuse
power when it's not earned. The other is that when given the opportunity people will often degrade
others to ensure their own security. Both books rely heavily on symbolism, as well as the actions of
their characters, to express these ideas. Consequently, both these novels show us what a frightenin
g place the world can become if people ignore the principles of civilization as we know it.
In both
books, for different reasons, the characters create their own governments, and some of them soon be
gin to usurp and abuse power. For example, in Animal Farm seven commandments were written on the wal
l, a few of them were: "No animal shall sleep in a bed, No animal shall kill another animal, No anim
al shall drink alcohol." When one of the pigs, named Napoleon, took over he gradually changed the co
mmandments. For instance, he changed the commandment "No animal shall kill another animal." to, "No
animal shall kill another animal without cause." In Lord of the Flies there are several examples of
characters abusing power. One of the characters, named Ralph, had originally started a democratic f
orm of government. Two of the boys, Roger and Jack, eventually started there own form of government
and took over. Jack fell in love with his new found power and became dictator to the boys. He even s
tarted a hunt to kill Ralph simply because he felt Ralph was a threat to this power.
Because severa
l of the characters in both books were insecure, they would often degrade others to improve their ow
n security. This occurred in Animal Farm several times. For instance, there were two characters who
always seemed to disagree (Snowball and Napoleon). Whatever one said the other would put it down or
find something wrong with it, even if he actually agreed. Napoleon even urinated on Snowball's plans
for a windmill and ruined them. In Lord of the Flies there are several examples of insecure charact
ers downing others to improve their own security. For example, Roger, Jack, and even Ralph make fun
of one of the other boys they call "Piggy" because he is overweight. Roger is so insecure he even ki
lls Piggy because Piggy makes him feel threatened by contradicting his ideas and putting forth his o
wn ideas that were sometimes better than Rogers.
These books are both amazingly written and similar
in several ways, but there is one major difference. The two books end with completely different vie
ws of civilization. Animal Farm ends with the animals not being able to tell the humans and the pigs
apart, showing that evil had won. However, in Lord of the Flies, Ralph realizes when he sees the pi
g's head (which is used to represent evil) in its pristine state, that even in all this savagery and
evil some good may occur. Right after he realized this, a ship pulled up and rescued the boys. The
themes of both books are true to the dark side of human nature. Golding holds out a tiny thread of h
ope; Orwell lets us see the bad things that could happen and leaves us to figure out how to prevent
them.
book essay animal farm lord flies lord acton wrote letter bishop mandell creighton power te
nds corrupt absolute power corrupts absolutely often been noted that this primary theme both animal
farm lord flies addition these books share themes related this primary theme theme that people will
often abuse power when earned other that when given opportunity people will often degraEssay, essays
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