Golding's Lord of the Flies and Orwell's Animal Farm Comparative Study: Allegory and Characterization

Abstract

By the beginning of the 20th century,the world witnessed many changes and significant events. Whether they were historical, political, social, or economic, literature used to be a collection of works, ideas and views that clearly portrayed the world.In this context, we highlighted the two significant novels: Golding's Lord of The Flies (1954) and Orwell's Animal Farm (1945).The study aims at investigating the use of characterization and allegory in aforementioned novels. The study is conducted in a comparative method..A Formalist and a Marxist theories were chosen as theories to be worked with all along the work. Thus, a descriptive analytical research was conducted to investigate the characterization and allegory in both novels. The research paper is divided into three chapters. The first chapterdeals with the theoretical, historicaland developmental perspectivesof allegory. Furthermore, this chapter discusses the types of allegory and examines concepts which are essentially related to it. The second chapter is devoted to the historical background of both novels and writers. The third chapter tackles comparison. The results show similarities in ideas and characters. The core difference between the two literary works is that Lord of the Flies allegorizes the awful nature of human beings, while Animal Farm allegorizesthat not every change is pleasant and fruitful in the political area.Another core difference to be stated is the exaggerated reliance on symbolism in Lord of the Flieswhile in the Animal Farm reliance ison personification.