This work analyzes two post–apocalyptic novels written in very different times and cultures: George Orwell’s masterpiece Nineteen Eighty–Four, published in 1949, and Cormac McCarthy’s The road, Pulitzer Prize in 2007. It is assumed that they both are a philosophical understanding of totalitarianism, and this is the reason why here they are considered relevant as sources of reflections about power. More specifically, the way the authors describe and use language, such as the Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty–Four or the dialogues between the father and the son in The Road, represent two very different, by some extent polar opposite models of exerting power. In its conclusions, the comparative study suggests some critical issue concerning the way i...