Corruption Theme Analysis

In an interview, Alderman stated that in writing The Power, she wished to interrogate the belief that women would make better leaders than men. As the balance of power tips from men to women in her book, Alderman argues that this would not be the case. The book demonstrates that regardless of gender, power is an inherently corrosive and corrupting force that leads not to a desire for the betterment of society, but rather only to a desire to protect one’s own status and group.

At first, the women primarily use violence in cases of self-defense and in order to escape horrific situations, as with Allie’s murder of her rapist father. But as the book goes on and the women gain even more power, the power starts to corrupt their morals, and they exact violence for cruelty rather than justice. When Allie runs away, she realizes that the only way that she can truly feel safe is, as a voice in her head counsels her, “to own the place.” She then travels to a convent, takes on a new name, Eve, and begins to preach a new religious message based on this new power. But when one of the nuns becomes skeptical of her new religious message, Allie kills the nun—thinking to herself that if she does not quash her enemies, she can never be safe. While religion is typically thought to foster peace and love, Allie is more motivated by the desire to eradicate anyone who doesn’t support her ideas. Meanwhile, women who had been sold into sex slavery in Moldova gain power and create a new country, Bessapara. Tatiana Moskalev, the leader of this new country, starts to let the power corrupt her intentions of building a freer nation. At a party, when a young man interrupts her, she shatters a wine bottle on the floor and makes him lick up the wine (and several shards of glass). One might believe that a female ruler would be more kind and forgiving than a male ruler. But Alderman counters that idea by showing Tatiana’s cruelty, brought on by her newfound power. Through government programs, Margot creates training camps for girls to learn to control their power, and subsequently forms an army of those girls. She then teams up with Tatiana Moskalev, who agrees to contract with the army in exchange for American support of Bessapara. With this support, Tatiana Moskalev is able to introduce many laws that curb men’s freedoms with little international criticism. Thus, power becomes a cycle, which allows for institutional discrimination and suppression of those who might try to resist it. And Margot has become so corrupted by her desire to see the camps succeed that she ignores the injustices brought upon a group of which she is not a part.

Tunde and Roxy both endure terrible experiences at the hands of those with more power than they have—in Tunde’s case, another journalist named Nina, and in Roxy’s case, her brother Darrell and father Bernie. Roxy and Tunde come to the conclusion that the others hurt them simply because they had the power to do so. After Roxy learns that Bernie was actually the person who ordered her mother’s death, she ousts him from his crime ring and takes over. But Bernie and Darrell refuse to allow Roxy to get away with this, and so they kidnap her and have the biological source of her power (a muscle women develop called a skein) surgically removed in an extremely painful operation. They implant her skein into Darrell, allowing him to wield the power that she once had. Bernie and Darrell are so resistant to losing any of their power that they resort to despicable means to maintain it. Power thus corrupts even those who already have it, as they become motivated against losing power. Tunde experiences a similar injustice. While he is reporting in Bessapara, Tunde sends his materials and research for a book to another journalist named Nina, whom he had dated briefly. As conditions in Bessapara worsen for men, Tunde is forced to go into hiding and is even reported dead. Later, he reads online that Nina has taken everything he sent her and has claimed it as her own reporting. The power that Nina has gained, and her belief that Tunde could never refute her actions, allows her to steal his entire life’s work without any hesitation. Towards the end of the book, Roxy and Tunde meet each other in the forest, both of them completely powerless. As they relay their stories to each other, Alderman writes this exchange: “One of them says, ‘Why did they do it, Nina and Darrell?’ And the other answers, ‘Because they could.’ That is the only answer there ever is.” Thus, the novel makes it clear that it is not only that power enables problematic and corrupt behavior: power also prompts that behavior.

At the very end of the book, Alderman focuses once more on Allie in order to demonstrate how her corruption has prompted the most extreme desire: the wish to set society back five thousand years in order to rebuild it as a matriarchy. By the book’s final chapters, Allie has become a revered religious figure named Mother Eve. She is so power-hungry that she deposes Tatiana Moskalev and expresses to Roxy her desire to “bomb ourselves back to the Stone Age” so that women can create a society in which they will always be dominant. She has no desire for equality and she also has no intention for progress. Rather, she (and the many women worldwide who choose to follow her) would rather set themselves back thousands of years in order to ensure the continuation of their power.

Through her various characters and their fluctuating states of power, Alderman deftly illustrates how the intense desire to retain and further that power obscures all other motivation and morality. In individuals as diverse as politicians, journalists, and even religious figures, whether men or women, power quickly results in mass corruption.