Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies

742 Words3 Pages
Comparative Essay: At times, the authority of a group of people becomes displaced due to disgruntlement among the populace. When the authority is removed, another one must take its place in the governing body. George Orwell and William Golding both illustrate different outcomes of such a situation in their novels Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies respectively. In both stories, an unchanging government is replaced by a volatile and hostile government. These books share the same notion in that a new government can easily appear to be better than the former one, when in reality it will be most likely worse. In both stories, the former government is seen as dictatorship and tyrant and must be taken down no matter what the cost. Mr. Jones of Animal Farm delegates many persistent tasks to the animals of his farm including pulling carts, sowing, laying eggs, but keeps the profit to himself. Naturally, the animals do not like being bossed around and therefore become very angry and designate Jones as an enemy to their welfare. The only thing on the animals’ minds is to overthrow the terrible leader of the farm, not thinking of what they would do with power in their own hands. In Lord of the Flies, Ralph gives the job of tending the fire going to some of Jack’s hunters, only to become furious when they let it go out, missing a possible chance of rescue. The children only do what they find fun, making them rebel against Ralph’s logical way of managing things. Because they dislike following their jobs assigned by Ralph, they blindly join Jack, advertised as the opposite of Ralph’s tribe-fun. The desire for change, as shown here, blinds the intuition of people on that is right, causing them to rebel harshly against authority. Even when the leaders of both groups become as terrible as or even more dreadful than the previous leaders, the people still comply with the
Open Document