Power is the ultimate tool that can test the resilience of an individual’s code of morals. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Voltaire’s Candide, the leaders in both societies miserably fail this test; with power easily within their reach, the religious leaders in Candide and World Controllers in Brave New World exploit their positions of influence either for their personal gains or to enforce their personal ideologies. The two societies are incapable of dampening the corrupt powers of the leaders because the ordinary citizens do not hold them culpable. Both authors reveal that in the absence of accountability people of authority are susceptible to abusing their power, compromising their morals, and demonstrating hypocrisy.
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