Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Power, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power and Violence
Corruption
Gender Reversals and Sexism
Stories, History, and Perspective
Religion and Manipulation
Revolution and Social Change
Summary
Analysis
Margot and Daniel are having another argument, this time in a large meeting. He expresses worry that anyone in the room could have the power; Margot retorts that they know Daniel doesn’t have it, which gets a laugh. Daniel presses on, saying grown women can now do it. He announces that they’re going to make government employees to get tested, because it’s like walking around with a loaded gun.
This is yet another way in which the men in the novel attempt to maintain a sense of power. Whether this is truly a way to make sure that people don’t have this controllable power, or simply a veiled way to root out more women from their department, the test is (theoretically) a way to reaffirm that men have power over women.
Themes
On the morning news, a history professor and the anchor, Tom, discuss prehistoric images that resemble a woman with lightning coming from her hands. The professor talks about a Goddess in old Semitic texts, Anath, who was a warrior goddess who wielded lightning and bathed in the blood of her enemies. Tom says to Kristen, the other anchor: “That doesn’t sound like much of a beauty regime, now, does it, Kristen?” Tom asks Kristen casually if she would tell him if she had this power. She says that she might want to keep that to herself, and “something unspoken passes between them.”
This segment on the news are notable for a few reasons: it again confirms that Tom is assigned the hard-hitting stuff, while Kristen is relegated to jokes about “beauty regimes.” Second, it shows how society is already reinterpreting some of its history and stories to try to understand what is happening in contemporary society, which also confirms the power of stories and history in shaping how people understand themselves. And last, the wordless look between the anchors shows how even the threat of having power is in some ways as powerful as having it, because it can still prompt fear.
Themes
Late at night, Margot drives to an unmonitored part of town and blows the electricity in the lampposts. She laughs at her ability, feeling that she now has “a sort of constant ease.” Her daughter Jocelyn, on the other hand, has not had it so easy. Some days Jocelyn has a lot of power, but some days she doesn’t have enough to defend herself from girls in the street. They call her nasty names, like flat battery, gimp, or pzit (for the sound of a woman failing to make a spark). Margot and Jocelyn practice together in the garage, and Margot is excited to share this secret with her daughter.
Jocelyn’s interaction with other girls as a result of her sporadic ability foreshadows some of her later struggles in the NorthStar training camps. Even though Jocelyn tries to resist hurting and killing others, she is often driven by peer pressure and fear of looking weak, and so she later overcompensates by severely hurting a few boys they encounter. Thus, even those who try to resist corruption are sometimes forced to assert their power.
Themes
Margot is brought in for testing at work. She is nervous, as the test is meant to be infallible. They have used it on infants: give them an imperceptible shock, and the skein will respond automatically. The woman testing her puts the machine on, clicking through levels from one to eight. Margot controls her power and refuses to let herself discharge. She describes it like “simply not passing water when your bladder asks you to.” When the test is over, Margot is relieved. She knows that there’s no reason now not to put her in charge of rolling out this test.
This is the first primary example of corruption within the story, as Margot refuses to disclose her power and is then able to control how the test is conducted on others. It shows the fine line between a necessary rebellion and something more sinister: Margot is justified, knowing that she isn’t really a danger to others and that she would lose her job if the test were accurate. But it also shows how those in power can be easily tempted to lie in order to maintain and gain even more power.
Themes
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There are strange movements on the rise now in the United States: boys dressing as girls, girls dressing as boys. Margot feels it is important to try and keep everything normal. When she meets with Daniel again, he talks about one problem after another, always implying that he’s not brave enough to handle this problem but never saying it outright.
These descriptions illustrate how people’s understanding of gender has become reversed: boys are dressing like girls in order to seem more powerful; girls are dressing as boys in order to appear less threatening. People’s perception of what gender means has already become jumbled.
Themes
Margot thinks, with some pleasure as Daniel’s mouth is “flapping open and closed like a goldfish,” that she could kill Daniel right now. She knows she wouldn’t—what matters is that she could. “The power to hurt is a kind of wealth,” she thinks. She interrupts him suddenly, telling him not to waste her time. She suggests they work together, taking control of the situation. Daniel agrees, going quiet. Margot thinks, “That is how a man speaks.”
Margot recognizes here how the power to hurt trickles down into other forms of power. It gains her political power eventually, but it also gives her the liberty to speak bluntly and the ease that comes with knowing that she could kill Daniel and that he could not stop her from doing so. This is a corrosive thought, and seeds like this become rooted even more firmly in the minds of the characters as the story goes on, even though they’re initially presented as moral people.
Themes
Neil includes another archeological find: a rudimentary weapon that appears to be a glove with wires extending from it. It is approximately 1,000 years old and was discovered in a gravesite in old Westchester.
This artifact serves as yet another confirmation of how the power is used almost immediately as a weapon, and how women also search for ways to augment their capacity to hurt even further.
Themes
