What are the similarities and differences between George Orwell's 1984 and William Golding's Lord of the Flies?

Although each book is intended to be a dystopian novel,
they both exhibit stark contrasts from each other.

Orwell's
1984 uses a society at large with a
focus on just a few characters. This society contains a hierarchy based on power and
influence. Those in power pride themselves on the ability to control the entire rest of
the society. In Golding's Lord of the Flies, we do not see a
society at large, but a microcosm of a society, and of only children at that. His
purpose for showing just a piece, and a young piece devoid of adult influence served to
demonstrate what would arise from a people removed from the influence of their
government. A new "government" would emerge, and it did not look that much different
than the old one that he is likely commenting on from his current
era.

Character development
differs significantly. The Winston Smith character of 1984 stands
for the everyman. He wants to challenge the government because he is intelligent enough
to determine that something is wrong, but he is so entirely average that he really
doesn't have the power to do so. The closest we get to an everyman in Lord of
the Flies is Ralph, yet he is made leader for a large portion of the book.
Both Ralph and Winston go through great tragic mental anguish in order to come to a new
and defeated understanding of the new world, thus there is indeed similarity. The group
of boys certainly develops a hierarchy as the society in 1984 did,
but they do so without realizing it.

War and useless
killings that go completely ignored happen in both books which demonstrates that both
authors had a similar perspective about the post-WWII environment they wrote their
novels in.