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Dylan Taipalus

Mrs. Maldonado

English 10 Honors

28 November 2016

Tyrannical Destruction

Throughout history, the abuse of power has plagued the world with conflict and this

couldn’t be depicted more accurately than in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and George

Orwell’s Animal Farm. George Orwell delineates a story of an unhappy group of animals from

Manor Farm that overthrow their owner, Mr. Jones, due to how he mistreated them. With no

owner on the farm, Napoleon and the pigs take control. But soon after, Napoleon begins to take

his leadership power too far and the society that the animals worked so hard to build is

destroyed. In Lord of the Flies, a group of military school boys are left stranded on an island

after their plane crashes with no way of getting home. As the boys begin to find each other,

Ralph and Jack find each other fighting for leadership. As Jack’s long for power continues, he

convinces a group of boys to join his side and begins abusing his leadership power by killing the

others members of the island and ruining everything the boys have built. Both of these novels

show an antagonist character using his power to destroy a society to convey the common theme;

abuse of power while using literary devices such as symbolism and irony to show how the

tyrannical activity swells through the novel and foreshadowing to provide hints of political

injustice.

In the novels, both Orwell and Golding use symbolism to convey the theme of abusing

power. An example of this is seen in Animal Farm when the pigs began to change the symbolic

rules of the farm: “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others” (Orwell 134).
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The pigs power grew so immense that they abolished the commandments that the animals

founded to the point that the commandments began to symbolize the manipulation that the abuse

of power can have on a group of people. Likewise, Lord of the Flies uses symbolism to show the

abuse of power by showing the manipulation of law through tyranny. In the novel, Jack’s power

grew and when defied, decided to take things into his own hands by killing his opposition: “The

rock struck piggy with a glancing blow from the chin to knee; the conch exploded into a

thousand white fragments and ceased to exist” (Golding 181). As Jack became more and more

powerful, he began to abuse the power by killing the members of the island and eventually

destroying the shell that symbolized law on the island. Both of these examples show two

antagonists degrading symbols of the law in a society.

Irony plays a large role in displaying the theme in Animal Farm by. For instance, at the

beginning of the novel, Old Major makes it clear that after the animals are being oppressed by

the society the humans have built, and when humans are pushed off of the farm, the animals will

build a much better society that is different from the human society (Orwell 6-12). Ironically,

later in the novel the pigs are compared to the humans: The humans and pigs were together in the

house shouting when soon the animals looking in couldn’t tell the difference between man and

pig (Orwell 141). Old Major had a dream of a perfect society without humans but with the pigs

abusing their power, they turned into humans themselves.

Likewise, Lord of the Flies uses irony to show the progression of abuse of power. An

example can be seen when Jack is putting on his face paint for when he goes out hunting: Jack

decided that he was going to go hunting for pigs again and had figured out that he would need a

mask in order for him not to be seen. He begins to paint his face with clay and charcoal until his

face was not recognizable (Golding 63). The irony in it is that his goal of building the mask was
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so that he wouldn’t be able to be seen as himself, specifically to the pigs, but, in actuality, the

mask brought how who he was more than it was seen before he had the mask. The mask revealed

who Jack was; a psychotic killer who’s search for power will stop at nothing, not even the life of

another man. The irony shows how Jack’s abusiveness of power when he eventually gains an

authoritative role on the island.

While symbolism and irony displayed the progression of the theme, both novels use

foreshadowing to give hints of the corrupt leadership that is to come. For instance, in Animal

Farm’s exposition, the pig Old Major gives a speech to the farm animals which encompasses his

death that he thinks is to come and the oppressing leadership of the humans over the animals. He

uses the dream to convey a message to the animals about the poor living conditions under the

humans and the rebellion he wants to form against them (Orwell 6-12). The foreshadowing of

Old Major’s death is used to suggest the demise of his message and the tyranny that will come

when he leaves. The foreshadowing in Lord of the Flies shows Jack’s evil tendencies that will

later shine through. This is seen when Jack’s evil comes through early in the novel while he is

found painting his face: “He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling”

(Golding 64). Jack’s evil laugh creates an eerie tone that is used to foreshadow his psychotic

habits that lead to the oppression that he puts on the island members later in the book. The

foreshadowing seen by both Old Major and Jack are used to present the theme abuse of power.

In conclusion, the usage of literary devices to convey a relevant, central theme was

flawlessly executed by George Orwell and William Golding in each of their novels. The use of

literary devices helped transport the theme of abuse of power outside of the novels and into the

real world. They help display the devastation a society withstands with a oppressive leader and
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even show how it repeats through history, for “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power

corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton).

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Work Cited

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1954. Print.

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962. Print.