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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
Eve has grown quite popular in the new state of Bessapara. Bernie has been doing business with Moldova for years: cars, cigarettes, alcohol, guns. Given these two factors, Roxy asks her father to send her there. She creates a new drug to sell called Glitter and gives it to women to try out in London. Glitter is designed to enhance their power, and it gets the women who try it very excited.
Glitter plays a large role in the corruption of many of the characters over the rest of the book. Even though women already have power over men, they can’t help but want even more. They enhance their powers because they can, and because Roxy and Bernie are eager to make a profit on it.
Themes
A man named Steve is picking up boxes full of hourglasses—which are really filled with drugs. But when he arrives at the gate, a woman stops him and asks to see his paperwork. He tries to make jokes, but instead she grabs his wrist and gives him a shock that makes him feel like his hand is on fire. She tells him that Roxy Monke is taking over the business. He nods. She lets him go and tells him not to sell this new batch until they instruct him to. Steve leaves with the boxes, noting that the “sand” looks slightly different—it’s all tinged with purple.
This is another example of a direct correlation between the ability to hurt and the ability to gain power. Because this woman is able to inflict pain, she is promoted and used as an intimidator. Roxy is the same: her ability to use the power especially forcefully makes her an asset in creating fear and power for Bernie.
Themes
Roxy counts her money—she likes “watching her decisions turn into maths turn into power.” She’s gaining influence with Tatiana Moskalev, and she’s inspired fear into a factory so that they turn a blind eye on what they’re creating. When she returned home, she told Bernie about her idea for the drug, and it was the biggest idea he’d heard in a long time.
Roxy recognizes how the ability to hurt can translate into other forms of power: political power with the President of Bessapara; economic power in the form of money; and social capital in the form of inheriting a crime ring, as Roxy is on her way to doing.
Themes
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Additionally, because of the new churches, they’ve got 70 loyal women working on their production line who think they’re doing the work of the Almighty by bringing power to her children. The Monkes are the sole suppliers of Glitter. Roxy emails Eve the weekly profit totals, and sends her a supply of Glitter for herself. She writes, “You look after us and we’ll look after you.”
This description illustrates how religion, manipulation, and corruption intersect. Because Allie has convinced these women that the power is the will of God, they feel that producing drugs to give women even more power is inherently good—even though their work is actually supporting organized crime.
Themes
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Neil includes an image depicting a mass grave of male skeletons in a recent excavation of the “Post-London Village Conglomeration.” The hands had been removed pre-mortem and the skulls had been incised with scars post-mortem.
Neil foreshadows how the power will lead to corruption and torture as the women slide from using their power to defend themselves and start using it to unnecessarily and indiscriminately torture and kill others (primarily men).
Themes
