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 sits with Bernie on a balcony, looking out at the ocean. Roxy tells her father that she should kill him. He agrees, saying she “can’t afford to be soft.” Roxy tells him she’s met a man—she got him out of a country full of women trying to kill him, and she owns an underground bunker. Bernie hopefully asks about grandchildren. Roxy thinks with a smile that if she had a daughter, she’d be strong. The two have a drink before they “go down.”
Roxy’s ending is ambiguous—it is implied that perhaps she and her father brawl or fall off the balcony together and into the ocean. But it is notable that Roxy, who is the only female character whose power has been stripped from her, is less concerned with world domination and more concerned with closure with her father or perhaps even pursuing a relationship with Tunde. Her desire for peace on both individual and global scales again suggests that power causes corruption, and that by extension, Roxy might be better off without hers.
Themes
