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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 walks and hides for three months, hitchhiking and traveling north. Back in Jacksonville, Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor had found Mr. Montgomery-Taylor on Allie’s floor with his pants around his ankles. She had pulled his pants up but left him on the floor, thinking that the story would be better if he’d been in Allie’s room delivering the catechism. When the police arrive, she gives them a photo of Allie. They would have found her quickly if calls had not started coming in about other incidents and accidents.
Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor’s decision to obscure the truth highlights the power inherent in being the person who tells the story. Allie is unable to give her side of what happened, and so Mrs. Montgomery-Taylor is able to pretend that her husband was a righteous man, and that Allie is simply a murderous girl—even though she knows this is not nearly the whole truth.
Themes
Allie finds a town on the coast and sleeps there for three days on the advice of the voice. She visits the library, the church—anywhere that’s warm and dry and won’t throw her out. On the third day she sneaks into the aquarium. She notices something—she can sense there’s another girl who can do what she can do, a power she believes that only she has. But then she realizes it’s not a girl, it’s a tank of eels. Allie reads a sign saying that electric eels can interfere with the electric signals in the brains of their pray, even causing them to swim straight into the eels’ mouths.
The eels bear a deep connection with Allie, and foreshadow her eventual ability to be able to control people’s actions and even their brain activity, to a degree. At the same time, they are a metaphor for Allie’s ultimate ability to manipulate her followers, leading them to work against their own interests and destroy their own society for her purposes.
Themes
The voice then directs Allie to a convent. The nuns immediately care for her, bringing her food, setting up a bed, and exclaiming excitedly when they find the crucifix in her bag. Over the next three months, many other girls are thrown out on the street for using their power, and they, too, seek refuge in the convent. Some girls are thrown out for violence; some because their parents thought they were possessed and called them witches. One had shocked a boy because he asked her to. The girls are intrigued, wondering if boys like it. They find internet forums suggesting this is the case.
Alderman shows how, even when the girls acquire their power, the fact that they are young women and that these are isolated cases still makes it easy to oppress them. It is only when they rise on a global scale, including older women, that they are able to gain greater power. Additionally, Alderman hints again at something Tunde expressed earlier: how desire, subjugation, and power are all intertwined.
Themes
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One girl asks Allie’s story, and she knows she can’t give her real name or story. She calls herself Eve instead. Allie lies and says her parents had sent her to relatives for two weeks and when she came back, they had moved away, worried that she would hurt her two younger brothers.
Initially, Allie doesn’t change her name out of a desire to manipulate others—she does it merely to survive. But lying about her identity and her story is ultimately what allows her to manipulate others.
Themes
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Allie likes it in the convent, and wants to stay forever. There is one nun, Sister Maria Ignacia, whom Allie really likes. She has dark skin like Allie, and tells stories of how Jesus was taught love by his mother, Mary. Allie asks Sister Maria Ignacia if she can stay in the convent forever. The sister says that she would have to become a nun, and she might decide she wants other things for her life.
Sister Maria Ignacia’s interpretation of how Jesus learned love sets an early example of what Allie eventually does. She manipulates the Scripture and teachings of existing religions in order to suit her own narrative, in which women have always been in control.
Themes
Allie is upset, thinking that Sister Maria Ignacia doesn’t want her to stay. The voice tells Allie that if she wants to say, the voice can fix that. Allie asks if the voice is Mary. The voice says, “if you like, my dear.” The voice continues, saying that if Allie wants to stay, she’ll have to “make this place [her] own.”
The voice’s counsel that Allie must own the place in order to feel like she belongs there becomes a primary motivation for Allie and a key insight to power. Although eventually this motivation deeply corrupts her, all she wants initially is to be able to find a place where she can feel safe.
Themes
The girls play at fighting, trying out their skills. Allie is more subtle, not wanting them to know that she’s the one jumbling their brain waves or making their arms jump involuntarily. After a few months, some of the girls start to move on to other places and invite Allie to go with them. But Allie stays instead.
Allie’s skill at controlling her own power becomes another means of being able to manipulate people. Physically and mentally, she is literally able to control others. Although this is a different power than physical hurt, it is still a form of domination and ends up being just as dangerous.
Themes
One day, Allie hears the nuns arguing amongst themselves. Sister Veronica insists that the girls’ powers come from the devil, though Sister Maria Ignacia says that they are simply playing games. Sister Veronica notes that young girls awaken the power in older women just as Eve passed the apple to Adam. She says that they will wait for guidance from the Diocesan Council on what to do.
Sister Veronica’s argument not only becomes a threat to Allie, but explicitly connects Allie (who has chosen the name Eve) to the Biblical figure of Eve. This passage foreshadows Allie’s intention for global change, even if it comes at a deep cost.
Themes
Allie thinks over the Sister Veronica’s words, and wonders whether it was right for Eve to pass the apple—whether it was “what the world needed.” The voice commends her. Allie asks if the voice is God. The voice responds, "Who do you say that I am?” Allie doesn’t fully answer, only affirming that the voice guides her in her time of need. Allie also wonders why the power would exist if God didn’t intend it. The voice then tells Allie that there is a need for a prophet in the land—Allie herself.
The voice’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” is yet another reference to the Bible: Matthew 16:15. In the Bible, the speaker is Jesus, asking for confirmation of faith from his followers. So, too, does the voice ask Allie to believe in it. But the fact that Allie is so constantly uncertain about the voice’s true identity is emblematic of the fact that she is simply using it as an excuse to believe that she is following God, rather than possessing true faith.
Themes
