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 is doing debate prep for her upcoming debate against Daniel. With her advisor, Alan, she runs through her three-point plan to tackle the budget deficit. She easily rolls out her first two points, but when she has trouble remembering the third point, Alan asks her if she really wants it. She is adamant that she does, and finally comes up with the third point, which is investing in infrastructure. She argues that she’s already confident managing large-scale projects with the NorthStar camps for girls.
Margot is another example of how power becomes self-perpetuating. After taking control and power from Daniel by creating the NorthStar camps without his permission, she hopes that people will have confidence in her to give her even more power over him.
Themes
Alan asks if Margot has worrying ties with private military corporations. She counters that the NorthStar Systems are a well-respected company. She argues that she would not send her own daughter to a NorthStar day camp if she didn’t think they were a force for good. Jocelyn, who has entered the room unnoticed, starts applauding.
Alderman hints at the fact that women are gaining more and more power as they learn to use it, which is an effort that Margot spearheaded. This was also made possible by the fact that people didn’t know that Margot had the power, thus allowing her to quietly orchestrate an advantage for those whose powers were known. Power, Alderman implies, can be most potent when it is hidden.
Themes
Jocelyn is doing better after two years with NorthStar. They’ve helped her tone down the highs, but haven’t helped her lows. There are still days when she has no power at all, and they can’t find a pattern to it. Margot has been quietly talking about funding some research.
This passage hints at both Margot’s and Jocelyn’s eventual corruption: Margot eventually abandons all principles simply in order to gain more power and prove that she can effect change. Jocelyn, on the other hand, doesn’t want to appear weak in front of others and so she starts to try to prove her strength to others, even at great personal cost.
Themes
Margot takes a break, and Jocelyn unexpectedly introduces her to a boy named Ryan, who is 19—a year older than Jocelyn. Margot asks how they met, and Jocelyn answers that they met at the mall. She tells Margot that they’re going upstairs to do homework together. Margot insists, quietly, that Jocelyn keep her bedroom door open. Jocelyn stiffens, but agrees.
Jocelyn also knows the power of crafting a story to suit one’s own narrative. Even though she tells her mother she and Ryan met at the mall, the reader will soon learn that really met online and only “met at the mall” because they had planned to meet there.
Themes
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Margot returns to her debate prep. She asks Alan what he meant by asking her if she really wanted to be governor. Alan tells Margot that she needs to be more aggressive. Margot says that she does want it, thinking of how much faster she would be able to get things done as Governor. She tells Alan that she wants it for her daughters—to help Jocelyn.
At first, Margot believes that she is doing what she does for Jocelyn, implying a kind of selfless, motherly act. But later Margot acknowledges that her real motivation is to “wipe the smile off of Daniel’s face.” She wants to beat him and gain power over him, not to make a better world but simply for the sake of self-interest.
Themes
Upstairs, Jocelyn pulls the door closed to her room. She and Ryan start to kiss. She has a popping feeling in her collarbone and tries to calm herself, not wanting to hurt him. He asks to see her skein. She unbuttons her shirt for him to see the muscle along her collarbone. He pulls off his own sweater and unbuttons his shirt: he has a skein, too.
Jocelyn’s fear that she might hurt Ryan if she gets too excited is another indication of the novel’s gender reversals, paralleling of the stereotype of men trying not to hurt women when they are excited during sex.
Themes
Jocelyn and Ryan did meet at a mall, but only because they had first been talking in a private chatroom online for people who have unusual skeins. Ryan has a chromosomal irregularity. It’s rare for men with these irregularities to have a skein, and those who do don’t talk about it often, as they are associated with weirdness. Jocelyn and Ryan start to give each other light shocks; they gasp with pleasure. Ryan lies back on the bed, “begging her to stop and begging her to carry on.”
There is an implication that because Ryan has a skein but is a man, people view him as weird. This demonstrates how skeins are starting to help define what makes a man and what makes a woman. Even though the power is shifting from men to women, the book indicates that the firm boundaries between genders, though very real in a social sense, don’t always have clear biological underpinnings.
Themes
Downstairs, Margot is still thinking about the question Alan asked: why does she want to be governor? She thinks about Jocelyn and how she’d be able to help her. But, as she continues her debate prep and her charge builds up as she speaks, she knows the real reason is that she wants to knock Daniel down and to see the look on his face when he loses.
Even though Margot’s motivation was originally pure (not unlike to Allie’s), when given the power, her underlying desire actually shifts. It is not that she doesn’t care for her daughters, but the desire to hold power over others becomes the most motivating factor once she has the ability to make it a reality.
Themes
