Should the government have absolute power? Should citizens blindly follow their leaders? George Orwell's Animal Farm and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 convey the theme of "absolute power corrupts" by providing original plots, characters, allusions, and irony. The theme "absolute power corrupts" is portrayed in both Orwell's and Bradbury's plots. In Animal Farm, there is a cruel owner of the Manor Farm named Mr. Jones. The plot begins when Major, an old boar in the farm, calls a meeting about his dream. He tells the other animals of a vision he saw, a time where animals ruled humans. After Major dies, the animals are prepared to finish what he started. Three animals, Napoleon, Snowball, and Squealer, create a system called Animalism, which is an elaborate system of Major's teachings. Jones is run off of the farm when he does not feed the animals. The animals now have control of the farm and they rename it Animal Farm. After a successful take over of the farm, the pigs reduce the principles of Animalism to the Seven Commandments. As the farm evolves, Napoleon and Squealer become corrupted by power. Squealer and Napoleon make changes to the Seven Commandments that allow them to do what humans can do, even though they swore to never do that. By the end of the book, the entire farm begins to fall apart because of the corrupted leadership.
The theme of Fahrenheit 451 is discovered in the landscape of a story that takes place in a time period where books are illegal because the government is scared that knowledge learned from books will cause disharmony and potentially lead to revolution. Guy Montag is a fireman that burns these illegal books. He meets a young girl named Clarisse who makes him change his mind about his job. Montag starts finding books and hiding them in his house secretly. He shows his wife Mildred the books and she is upset. One night at the station, they are called by Mildred to burn his house down with the books.