The Power: Chapter 34: Roxy 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.

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.

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.”

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.