Themes of The Lord of the Rings This is, according to Shippey, a very modern, 20th-century theme, since in earlier, medieval times, power was considered to "reveal character", not alter it. Shippey mentions Lord Acton's famous statement in 1887, that ""Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men..."" He then goes on to point out authors that were dealing in the same themes of power and corruption at around the same time as Tolkien wrote his work. These authors include George Orwell with "Animal Farm" (1945), William Golding with "Lord of the Flies" (1954), and T. H. White with
Lord William Russell Also present was the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, who subsequently wrote an anti-capital punishment essay, "On Going to See a Man Hanged". He wrote, "I came away that morning with a disgust for murder, but it was for the murder I saw done … I feel myself shamed and degraded at the brutal curiosity that took me to that spot." Soon afterwards the murder scene was portrayed in a peep-show at a travelling fair. Notes Bibliography Lord William Russell Lord William Russell (20 August 1767 – 5 May 1840) was a member of the British aristocratic Russell family and longtime