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
Allie smokes as she calls Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor, who now runs a children’s home under the New Church. The voice tells her not to make this call, but Allie doesn’t listen. Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor is thrilled to hear from Allie and honored to get a telephone call from Mother Eve. She hopes that Allie sees that everything she and Mr. Montgomery-Taylor did was for Allie’s own good. Allie realizes, suddenly, that Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor was the one who told Mr. Montgomery-Taylor to hurt her; Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor was the one with the power.
It is at this point that Allie is undone by her own self-deception, as she realizes that she knew all along who had truly been behind her violent abuse. Whereas before, Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor had appeared as a powerless, passive figure, Allie now understands how she was just as vicious as her husband and just as bent on making Allie feel powerless. This alters Allie’s entire worldview, which has been predicated on the idea that men are inherently bad and women are inherently good.
Themes
Allie hangs up and “comes to pieces.” Allie wonders how many other women are like Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor. The voice says it told her not to make the call. Allie asks the voice, finally, if it is the devil. The voice says, “Look, I’m not even real. Or not real like you think ‘real’ means. I’m here to tell you what you want to hear.”
Allie’s uncertainty about the true identity of the voice provides further proof that it has always been a tool for her own self-deception. She knows that the voice isn’t God, or her mother, and the voice explicitly states that it is not real. It has only been a means for Allie to feel safe, and for her to believe that some higher power is leading her.
Themes
The voice tells Allie that it was always meant to make things simple for her. It says that everything is more complicated than it appears. It adds: “even a stone isn’t the same as any other stone, so I don’t know where you all think you get off labeling humans with simple words and thinking you know everything you need.”
The voice’s monologue here foreshadows the final passage of the novel, which is apocrypha excluded from the Book of Eve. This is where the voice actually breaks with Allie, as the voice proposes the idea that stories should not be as simple as humans try to make them. In a way, this is Alderman’s affirmation that it is wrong to say women are inherently peaceful and men are inherently aggressive and power-hungry, because the world is more complicated than that.
Themes
A long time ago, the voice says, a Prophet told it that some people wanted a king. The voice explained what a king would do: make them into slaves. But they wanted a king anyway. “You people like to pretend things are simple, even at your own cost,” the voice says. Allie asks if there’s no right choice. The voice says that there’s never been a right choice. Allie asks what she should do. The voice says that it can’t make things simple for Allie anymore. Allie says, “Been nice working with you.” The voice replies: “Likewise. See you on the other side.”
This story is a reference to the biblical passage 1 Samuel 8, which also serves as the epigraph for the novel, in which Israel asks for a king. It foreshadows the outcome that Eve will eventually be a global leader and icon, despite the fact that she is bent on destroying society. The voice reinforces how people are easily manipulated when they want easy solutions to their problems, just as Eve has done throughout the novel.
Themes
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Neil includes an image of “The Son in Agony, a minor cultic figure.” It is a partial wooden carving of Jesus’s crucifixion with the scars of the power etched across his chest.
In light of Eve’s plan to send the world back to the Stone Age and reframe the world in a way that makes women seem innately dominant, readers can begin to recognize in the artifacts that Neil includes that her plan worked. This one in particular demonstrates how drastically Eve was able to change the narrative away from male figures and towards female ones.
Themes
