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
Roxy recognizes Tunde as well, and he starts to cry “like a child, confused and angry.” He explains that he was looking for the mountain cult. He asks what she’s doing there, noting she had disappeared and everyone thought she was dead. Roxy explains that someone tried to kill her. She jokes that she was going to be the President of the country, and now she’s here. He laughs.
Tunde’s vulnerability in this moment demonstrates the vicious cycle of being a victim. When one loses power and becomes weak, it is easier to be preyed upon, and then one feels both physically and emotionally vulnerable in a way that makes one feel even weaker.
Themes
Roxy and Tunde continue to talk; Roxy explains that the other women know her, and so they leave her alone. Tunde asks her to help him get out. Roxy says she doesn’t want to interfere in their business. Tunde reminds her that she can do anything: she’s Roxy Monke. He’s heard about her strength. He assures her that she can just ask them to let him out and they would do it. She’s Roxy Monke, he repeats. Roxy is flattered, and agrees.
Tunde here that even just another person’s perception that one is powerful can make one feel powerful. Roxy can no longer cause pain following her skein removal, and she has no means of accessing the resources of her family. But Tunde’s confidence in Roxy makes her feel that she can do what she wants. Power, Alderman points out here, can be as much about threat and perception as it is about what one can actually do.
Themes
Roxy bargains with the blind woman for Tunde. She gives them a small bag of Glitter in exchange for Tunde. Roxy walks him to a refugee camp, and they start to joke and laugh with each other along the way. At the refugee camp, people also respect Roxy, and so they leave Tunde alone. He feels “a little safe for the first time in weeks.”
Just like Allie, Tunde feels the power of Roxy’s protection and experiences a sense of safety. The perception of the violence that Roxy can cause (even though it no longer exists) has the ability even to make others around her gain a sort of vicarious sense of power.
Themes
Tunde interviews a few people in the camp, who say that helicopters don’t land anymore; they simply drop food and medicine and clothes. They also relay a story circulating the newspapers, which asks how many men society really needs. The article argues that men are dangerous, commit the great majority of crimes, are less intelligent, less diligent, and more likely to suffer from disease. Society doesn’t need as many men as women to have babies.
The editorial described here echoes the theories that UrbanDox spewed in Tunde’s first interview, but which Tunde did not fully consider. Coming from UrbanDox, the story felt like a conspiracy and an absurd proposition. From those in power, it is much more terrifying. Thus, those in power can manipulate which stories are given credence and how the public consumes those stories. While the editorial tries to make a logical argument, underneath it hides a much more sinister idea: mass murder.
Themes
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The narration flashes to Kristen and Matt, discussing the issue. She assures him that they’re not talking about great guys like him. Matt nods, saying he blames the “men’s rights people” because their extremism provokes this response, and now society has to protect itself from them. Tunde can’t believe that the country is trying to kill most of its men, but the list of crimes punishable by death is growing longer.
Matt’s comments demonstrate what Tunde had already noticed in his hotel room. UrbanDox’s men’s rights group can actually be harmful, because it allows those in power to focus on extremism and deflect attention from the real injustices that are happening to men.
Themes
On their third night, an attack begins on the refugee camp. Roxy and Tunde run into the woods separately and Roxy climbs a tree. The women in the attacking gang start rounding up young men, setting fire to the tents. One woman tries to stop them from taking a curly-haired man, but she is overwhelmed easily and killed with a bolt directly through her eyes. Roxy looks away.
This episode demonstrates the epitome of the corruption that the power has brought on. These women are so power-hungry that they have become driven purely by an instinct towards violence, even against other women who have done nothing to them.
Themes
When Roxy looks back, one of the attackers has paralyzed the young curly-haired man and pulled off his pants. He is struggling for breath. The woman arouses him with her power and croons, as though she wants him to enjoy it. Roxy wishes she could kill them all, but she does not have her power. Instead, she watches, to be a witness.
Alderman makes explicit the women’s cruelty in this moment as they start to sexually assault the young men. She demonstrates how they can get away with this simply because they are preying on the most vulnerable population: the men within the refugee camps.
Themes
The woman jolts the man more and more, like “a glass spike” through his genitals. She unbuttons her pants and sits on him. Every time she thrusts, she gives him a jolt to his chest. The other women record it on their phones. She touches herself, really hurting him as she does so. He is trying to push her hand away and is screaming for help. When the woman comes, she sends a huge blast through his chest. The other women roar their approval, patting her on the back as she stands, laughing and smiling. The man is dead.
This very graphic rape scene can only be intended to shock and horrify readers. Yet, it also forces readers to contend with their reactions in contrast to Allie’s rape at the beginning of the novel. That example of assault was somewhat less violent—but it has also been far more normalized. It is no less traumatic for Allie, but it nonetheless elicits a different response from society. In this way, Alderman compels readers to confront this reversal of gender roles and that double standard.
Themes
The other men do not grieve—grief implies a kind of hope that someone can come and help. The men are all quiet. Roxy knows “there is no sense in what is done here this day.” More women go looking for their own men to rape. She knows the women are doing it “because they can.”
This description is also tied to Allie’s rape, when she knows not to scream or fight back anymore because she knows that it will do no good and will only draw out her torture. In each instance, the victims are trapped in a hopeless situation, facing a corrupt enemy and devoid of any power to fight back.
Themes
Roxy sees Tunde in a nearby tree. They are relieved to see each other. He climbs over to her, and they hide together from a woman below. The woman doesn’t see them but gets closer to them, climbing in the trees and trying to set the lower branches on fire. Tunde asks Roxy to shock the woman. Roxy shakes her head with tears in her eyes. Tunde realizes that he’s never actually seen Roxy use her power. He is stunned: “He hasn’t imagined for years what a woman could be without this thing or how she could have it taken from her.”
Again, power is tied with the ability to cause pain and harm. Without that ability, Roxy feels completely powerless to change what is happening around her. Additionally, this moment demonstrates how revolutionary the power has been. Only nine years after the Day of the Girls, Tunde already can’t imagine what life was like prior to the power.
Themes
The woman grows closer. Tunde sees an empty metal oil drum nearby that they’ve been using as a rain collector. He pulls out three canisters of film and throws them into the oil drum. The sound attracts the women’s attention, and they go to the oil drum. Roxy and Tunde are relieved; they drop down carefully from the trees and start to run. But when they turn back, they see in horror that there were two children in the oil drum: a boy and a girl, perhaps five or six years old. The women pull the crying children out of the drum. Roxy and Tunde cannot turn back.
Alderman reveals, in addition to their sexual violations, the extent of the women’s corruption. Far from any kind of self-defense or retribution for past crimes, the women have descended to targeting innocent children of any gender, driven simply by their desire to hurt.
Themes
Tunde and Roxy run, then walk, for hours, hand in hand. That night, they find a deserted rail station and a blanket to share. They thank each other for saving each other’s lives. Tunde tells Roxy about Nina; Roxy tells Tunde about Darrell. Eventually, one of them asks: “Why did they do it, Nina and Darrell?” The other person has a simple answer: “Because they could.”
Alderman demonstrates that Roxy and Tunde have come to an understanding about corruption. They recognize that power not only enables people to do bad things; it prompts people to do bad things who may not have done so otherwise. By not specifying which of the two answers the question, Alderman also emphasizes that the answer should be equally clear to anyone, regardless of gender.
Themes
Roxy and Tunde are both injured and hurt. They joke that Tunde is theoretically stronger than Roxy is now. They cannot tell “which of them is supposed to be which.” They trace old scars on each other’s bodies. He kisses the scar on her collarbone. They lie side by side, touching each other delicately. They make love gently before falling asleep together.
This is perhaps the only model that Alderman provides for what true equality might look like. Neither one can tell which is the more powerful, and therefore they cannot tell which is supposed to be more dominant—perhaps even implying that they aren’t even sure who is supposed to be which gender. Yet through the mere fact of this relationship being a clear anomaly, Alderman suggests that equality is much less common (and for most people, perhaps less intuitive) than inequality.
Themes
Neil illustrates another artifact: an “exceptionally complete Cataclysm Era carving,” around five thousand years old. It is a kind of monument, where something has been “deliberately removed from the center,” but it is impossible to know what was lost. Neil writes that carvings like it are “uniformly found in this condition.” It is theorized they contained portraits, lists of local ordinances, or were simply a rectangular form of art.
Although it is not completely clear, it is implied (based on Neil’s writings in the final chapter) that this may be a monument that depicted male soldiers or which contained the names of male soldiers. Thus, it has likely been destroyed in order to perpetuate the narrative, after the Cataclysm, that women have always been the dominant sex. This again demonstrates the power of perspective and being the one who can control the story.
Themes
