In 1887, a man named Lord Acton wrote a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton and in this letter he states, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” When I first read this particular quote of Lord Acton it reminded me of two novels, Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm. In the novels they have two completely different societies which they are trying to create but two overwhelming similarities within their societies. People will often abuse power when it is not earned and when given the opportunity people will often degrade others to ensure their own security. In both the novels they show how frightening a society 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 begin to usurp and abuse power. In Animal Farm the animals play the role of humans, in this way using most human characteristics. The animals decide they want to run the farm by themselves and they make a way of living called Animalism. They create seven commandments which were written on the wall for every animal to see, a few of the commandments read: “No animal shall sleep in a bed, No animal shall kill another animal, No animal shall drink alcohol.” Similar to Lord of the Flies, once the boys realize there are no grownups on the island to watch over them they must establish rules. The first rule they enforce to help establish order is that they must raise their hand, like in school, and Ralph will give them the conch and no one else can speak except the holder of the conch. Another rule is to create a signal fire and two boys must tend to the fire at all times. As you can see in both novels the characters are trying to create a society that is fair and livable to everyone involved but in a society where there is new found power there are always detrimental consequences. There are leaders in each society within the books, Napoleon and Snowball in Animal Farm and Ralph and Jack in Lord of the Flies. Each leader had gained a new sense of control within their society and with this control came corruption. In Animal Farm the corruption began when Napoleon forces Snowball to leave the farm, with this he gained all control and began to manipulate the rest of the animals into doing everything he wanted. In Lord of the Flies, Ralph had originally started the democratic form of government when two of the other boys, Roger and Jack started their own form of government and took over. Jack fell in love with his new found power and became dictator to the boys much like Napoleon. Jack even started a hunt to kill Ralph simply because he felt Ralph was a threat to his power. Because several of the characters in both books were insecure, they would often degrade others to
