The Power

The Power

by

Naomi Alderman

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Power makes teaching easy.

The Power: Chapter 21: Tunde Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Tunde is interviewing male protestors outside a mall in Tucson, Arizona. He had gotten a tip that something was going to happen here, but it seems it might have been false. The men wave banners reading “Justice for Men” and talk to him about the inequality men are facing. Tunde thinks about all the stories he could be covering: the new female Pope in Bolivia, more unrest in Saudi Arabia, girls trying to cut their skeins out of themselves with scissors (even though more than 50 percent of the time, if a skein is severed, the person dies).
This chapter begins to depict large reversals in gender dynamics, as men start to protest over their inequality—similar to the way in which women protest in order to call attention to their own inequality in contemporary society. Even though Tunde is a man, he thinks about the more exciting things to report that concern women, and has much less interest in covering the plight of these men.
Themes
Gender Reversals and Sexism Theme Icon
Stories, History, and Perspective Theme Icon
Suddenly, a bomb goes off in the distance. Tunde runs towards the thunderous sound, helping people up as he goes. The mall is on fire, and there is a pregnant woman trapped in the rubble by a concrete pillar. She is discharging her power with great force. Tunde tells her to breathe, trying to comfort her. She begs him not to leave her, and keeps sending her power into the ground. Suddenly, a fire ignites around her. Tunde picks up his camera and runs.
The irony of this attack is that while men are protesting for equality, they are still using and perpetuating violence. They, too, are using revolutionary action in order to try and maintain the current power structure—rather than ceding any power to the women or trying to create true equality.
Themes
Revolution and Social Change Theme Icon
On the local news, Kristen’s face is grim as she announces that a terrorist group called Male Power has claimed responsibility. Tom tells her, however, that the men just want equality. Kristen tries to wrap up the story, but Tom cuts in, refusing. He starts to argue that there’s no funding for men, and all the money is going to girls’ training camps. He curses at Kristen, telling her that he knows she has the power, too. They get him out of the building before they come back from commercial—the network had cut away even before he started his rant.
Tom’s outburst reveals another plot point in gender reversals and how women have been steadily gaining power. Whereas before, Tom always reported on the hard-hitting news, now Kristen is also reporting on it. The irony in Tom’s declaration that the men simply want equality is that when the gender roles were reversed, many men were more than happy to perpetuate a power structure in which they had the advantage.
Themes
Corruption Theme Icon
Gender Reversals and Sexism Theme Icon
Tunde watches reports of the story unfold from a hospital bed in Arizona. He emails his sister, Temi, who asks if he has a girlfriend. Tunde responds that there’s not much time for that. He had briefly dated another journalist named Nina for a while. She had used the power in bed, but he’d shied away from it, telling her to stop and crying.
Tunde’s vulnerability in bed is yet another gender reversal in this chapter. After the events in Delhi, in which a woman had used the power to make him vulnerable to sexual assault, Tunde has a much harder time with women in bed, echoing the trauma that sexual assault survivors (who are, more often than not, women) experience and the effect that it can have on their future relationships. 
Themes
Power and Violence Theme Icon
Gender Reversals and Sexism Theme Icon
Quotes
Get the entire The Power LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Power PDF
An email comes in from info@urbandoxspeaks.com. The email is from UrbanDox himself, saying that he saw Tunde’s reporting in Arizona and Delhi and they want him on their side—"the side of all men.” Tunde agrees, thinking that it would be a good interview for his book.
UrbanDox’s desire to speak with Tunde, and for Tunde to tell the men’s stories, again highlights the power of controlling a story; UrbanDox recognizes that having a strong storyteller on his side would be a meaningful asset.
Themes
Stories, History, and Perspective Theme Icon
Tunde is driven blindfolded to the interview. When he meets UrbanDox, he finds a white man in his mid-fifties with bleached blond hair and blue eyes. Recently, more and more people have started to read UrbanDox’s blogs and use them as a manifesto for violence. UrbanDox opens the interview with a series of conspiracy theories: that the power was planned after World War II because people thought that men had screwed up the world too much. And so, he goes on, they put Guardian Angel in the water to give women the power. The endgame is to kill all of the men.
UrbanDox’s influence serves as another example of the way in which stories can hold a lot of power. Even though his beliefs are a string of unfounded conspiracy theories, they inspire many violent actions in those who believe his words.
Themes
Stories, History, and Perspective Theme Icon
Tunde starts to argue, knowing that there have been women who’ve protected him the last few years. UrbanDox says that they do that to confuse him, so that he doesn’t only think of women as the enemy. He asks Tunde if he’s seen the numbers on domestic violence against men. Tunde has seen the numbers, and he knows the reason they are killing the men is “because they can.”
UrbanDox citing numbers on domestic violence against men is a direct parallel to many women today who point out the widespread nature of domestic violence against women. Keeping this language the same and reversing the gender roles reminds readers of the way in which society has become numb to these statistics.
Themes
Corruption Theme Icon
Gender Reversals and Sexism Theme Icon
UrbanDox continues, repeating that the women want to kill all of the men. When Tunde brings up the fact that women need men to carry on the human race, UrbanDox argues that women only need to keep a few genetically healthy men around in order to reproduce. UrbanDox also says that people “got slavery wrong.” He says that however badly a man treats a woman, he needs her in fit enough condition to carry a child. But now, the women only need one man to have a thousand children.
UrbanDox’s fears play into the theme of corruption that Alderman is increasingly exploring—of women taking advantage of their power. He believes that they will become so corrupt in their desire for power over men that they won’t even need to keep men around. But it is worth noting that men, too, have behaved in equally corrupt ways when they were the ones with superior physical strength.
Themes
Corruption Theme Icon
UrbanDox then asks Tunde to join their movement. He says that they need laws to protect men, curfews on women, and for the government to research a cure. UrbanDox also says that the terror attacks have only gotten started—that a bunch of nuclear weapons got lost after the Cold War, and the men running the terror attacks might have some of those.
As the book’s violence continues to escalate to the point of global war, UrbanDox’s encouragement of these attacks demonstrates why gradual change is so difficult: those in power will fight any small change that might allow for women’s equality. Thus, large-scale revolution becomes necessary for women to achieve anything at all. 
Themes
Revolution and Social Change Theme Icon