Comparison Essay

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Recommended: Concept of power in literature

Comparison Essay
The theme of power being abused is carried out in both I Only Came to Use the Phone and Lord of the Flies. The reasoning as to why we would see this theme as the base for both stories is because it is such a common theme; it is known that everyone craves power because of the self-satisfaction they gain from it. The authors of these stories realizing that, used the theme of abuse of power to create chaos within the story and create interest, and they did this by having their characters go after something that makes themselves feel powerful. In Lord of the Flies it was the powerful feeling of hunting for the boys, and in I Only Came to Use the Phone it was the power that the Matron had over Maria by sexually harassing her. Although those two examples seem as though it is people who abuse power it goes beyond that; as if the evil within everyone is awaken by power and that evil is what succumbs them to abuse the power.
In Lord of the Flies the readers first truly see the abuse of power when the boys pretend that one of the boys, Robert, is prey and stab at him as if he was some kind of animal they were hunting. “Ralph, carried away by a sudden excitement, grabbed Eric’s spear and jabbed at Robert with it”(Golding 114), now not only does this quote show that the satisfaction from power can transform even one of the most humane people; furthermore proving that evil is in everyone and the force of power is what makes it even more noticeable causing one to abuse the power. Like in Lord of the Flies, Marquez uses the statement made about Herculina, “…two inmates have been strangled to death by her…the first case had been by accident…the second proved less clear…”(Marquez 75), to show how they overlook the abuse of power ...

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... pretending that Robert was prey; from both of these we could infer even more the corruption that was to come. Both authors showed the idea that there was corruption among every authority figure in their book because Garcia showed how Herculina strangled the inmates without any speculation, but the night matron was also doing obscure things to Maria; and Golding showed this by having even one of the most humane and civilized boys at that point in the book, Ralph, give into the power of killing not only animals, but also pretending Robert was prey as well. Readers learn that the authors tried to show a deeper meaning that stems from the abuse of power which is that evil lives inside everyone, and power can cause that evil to take over a person and cause them to not know when is enough; which was shown through the immoral acts of the characters in both stories.

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