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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
Allie sits in a graveyard and lights a cigarette with her fingertips. A boy named Kyle mentions to her that a bunch of guys killed a girl in Nebraska the previous week for using her power that way. Another boy, Hunter, jokes that she could power her father’s factory. Mr. Montgomery-Taylor, who is really Allie’s foster father, owns a meat-packing company.
Kyle’s story is yet another exhibition of why it is difficult to enact change gradually: even small gestures (like a girl using her power to light a cigarette) are viewed as threats to the existing social order and must literally be killed.
Themes
Allie recalls visiting Mr. Montgomery-Taylor’s factory: watching chickens electrocuted in a water bath before being dragged into a scalding tank. As Allie watches, she imagines freeing the chickens and watching them take their revenge on Mr. Mongomery-Taylor. But a voice in her head stops her, saying that this is not the time yet. This voice has “never led her wrong.”
Allie’s desire to let the chickens free is a metaphor for her own wish for vengeance on Mr. Montgomery-Taylor, even though readers don’t know what for yet. Alderman also introduces the “voice” here, which exists only in Allie’s head and is part of the reason that she is able to establish a new faith later on.
Themes
Not long after visiting the factory, Allie notices a spark jump from her hand at dinner. The voice counsels her to practice, and she learns intense focus and control, burning the smallest holes in a tissue or making her lamp grow brighter and dimmer. She’s never heard of anyone else who can light their cigarettes this way. The voice instructs her that “there will be a day to use this.”
The voice’s guidance is part of the reason that Allie variously believes that it is the voice of her mother, the voice of God, or both. But even though the voice instructs her well, it is never clear whether it is truly a divine being or simply a part of Allie’s own consciousness. Yet she uses it to justify her religious manipulations despite not knowing where it comes from.
Themes
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Usually, Allie would let the boys touch her in the graveyard. Kyle starts to tug at her shirt, but she stops him, stinging him on the back of the hand. She says she’s not in the mood, but the boys ignore her. Hunter comes to the other side of her, pressing her between them. He grazes her breast and comes in for a kiss, but she shocks them both. They run away angrily.
Once again, Alderman establishes the existing power dynamic between genders—this time with sexual violence. Only because Allie is able to hurt the boys is she able to prevent them from assaulting her, a fact which also becomes true for her foster father shortly after.
Themes
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Allie returns to her home, climbing up the trellis into her bedroom window. When she arrives, Mr. Montgomery-Taylor is waiting for her in her room. Mr. Montgomery-Taylor says he saw Allie in the graveyard with “those boys.” He calls her a whore and beats her. He takes off his belt and pushes her knees apart, as he has done many times before. Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor sits downstairs listening to polka on the radio, imagining that her husband might simply be giving Allie a spanking.
The description of Allie’s rape is yet another way that Alderman establishes the existing power dynamics. Allie’s father’s ability to hurt her allows him to take advantage of her in other ways. Yet it is also notable to contrast this episode with the rape of the man in the woods in a much later chapter. This violence, though disturbing, is not nearly as shocking, because readers have internalized society’s normalization of violence against women.
Themes
Years ago, the voice had first come to Allie in a moment similar to this, telling her that she would survive this. As Mr. Montgomery-Taylor rapes her, Allie asks the voice, “It’s now, isn’t it?” The voice replies, “You know it.” She puts her fingers to his temple and jolts him. The narration notes: “She maketh a channel for the thunderbolt and setteth a path for the storm.”
Allie’s ability to kill her father demonstrates how women are able to use their power to enact violence, and thus to regain control over their own lives. The religious phrase (this time a paraphrase of Job 28:26) also has the effect of implying a kind of divine provenance for women gaining and using this power.
Themes
Mr. Montgomery-Taylor spasms and falls to the floor in fits. Allie pulls up her underwear and jeans and gives him a final shock over his heart to make sure he is really dead. She finds the small amount of money she’s hidden away and a battery radio. The voice tells her to take her crucifix. When she is finished packing, she climbs out the window. She thinks about taking a knife from the kitchen for protection, but then she remembers with a laugh that she has no need for a knife at all.
In equating her power to being able to wield a knife, Allie demonstrates how much the power is already connected to violence in the women’s minds. Even though the power can be used in many ways, as Allie comes to understand, the ability to create pain is the one that most directly leads to gaining other kinds of power, such as safety from aggressors.
Themes
Neil then includes three archeological images, approximately 500 years old and found in a dig in Sudan. They depict “the Holy Mother.” They each show a veiled female figure with eyes in the palms of her hands.
Though at first it is unclear exactly what the timeline is in the book, gradually it is revealed that these statues (and all of the artifacts presented in the book) are created after the Cataclysm, which sent the world back to the Stone Age, as Eve planned. This allowed her and her followers to remake the world with women as the ones who have always been the dominant gender.
Themes
