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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
Margot sends Jocelyn to a psychotherapist following the trauma of the boy’s death at the NorthStar camp, but Jocelyn is hesitant to tell the therapist anything because the therapist works out of an office paid for by NorthStar. Jocelyn tells the therapist about Ryan, saying that she wanted him to like her because she’s strong and in control, but she worried that he liked her for different reasons—because she was weak.
Jocelyn continues to explore the idea of power being a burden when she can’t meet societal expectations of what a woman is supposed to be: strong and powerful. This is a reversal of the way in which men in contemporary society are often forced to conform to those same expectations.
Themes
Jocelyn is back in touch with Ryan. It’s taken him months to convince her he didn’t post on the bulletin boards. Jocelyn is upset that Margot deliberately lied to her. Ryan assures her that he doesn’t think she is weak, and if she were weak, it wouldn’t matter. Jocelyn thinks of ads with women showing off their long arcs of electricity, with the underlying message that if you’re strong, you can get anything you want.
The ads that Jocelyn references tell a story in and of themselves: they demonstrate what society expects of young women and help perpetuate that expectation.
Themes
Jocelyn is currently stationed in the south of Bessapara. She reads accounts online on Tom Hobson’s website that “she can’t really believe”: in the north, there are gangs of women raping and murdering men at will. She also reads an article suggesting that the real reason NorthStar is in Bessapara is to protect supplies of Glitter.
Tom’s accounts are truthful, as Tunde and Roxy go on to witness in the next chapters, and again emphasize the necessity of stories that question an established power structure and investigate injustice.
Themes
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NorthStar gives Jocelyn packets of a purple-white powder “for her condition,” but she doesn’t need it because of Eve’s cure. She prays every night, thanking the Holy Mother. Jocelyn looks at the unused packets and wonders if it could be Glitter. She texts Ryan about it. He questions whether Margot could be working with a drug cartel. Jocelyn believes that if Margot had the chance, she would do it.
Jocelyn demonstrates how Eve’s manipulation has worked personally on her: she would do anything for the Holy Mother, despite the fact that Eve’s cure has real no basis in faith.
Themes
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On Jocelyn’s day off, she decides to take a drive. She prints out a map that she pulled from Tom’s website giving directions to one of the alleged drug manufacturing centers. She aims to take photographs, hoping to find something that would incriminate Margot, so that Jocelyn can finally get her mother to “let [her] go and live [her] life.”
Jocelyn recognizes Margot’s corruption, and how that corruption has led to her wanting to oversee Jocelyn’s decisions (including the boys she dates). This is an extension of the power and control that Margot wants to have over all aspects of her life, and a stark contrast to Margot’s initial positive intentions.
Themes
