This first half of The Power works through intense defamiliarization Here’s how those two stories fit together, and why the effect is so devastating. Instead, The Power becomes about, well, power: about the threat of violence that undergirds all human interactions, about what we do with power, and about the ways in which power corrupts. As the account we are reading becomes increasingly brutal, it stops being a classic women’s empowerment fantasy. One of them is an empowerment fantasy, a revenge fantasy: What would happen if women didn’t have to be afraid of men anymore? What would happen if men stopped being a physical threat to women? What would you do? How would your life change?įor the first half of The Power, it seems as though that’s the story Alderman is interested in telling.īut in the second half, The Power changes. There are two stories curled up inside of Naomi Alderman’s The Power, the Vox Book Club’s March pick. There's a computer game called "Braid" which I played, and I don't think I ever understood it or got what the developer hoped I would get out of it.The Vox Book Club is linking to to support local and independent booksellers.
I also usually find ambiguity in stories frustrating. So I always felt kind of confused about it. But then I kind of feel like that would make the voice in some ways an avatar for the author. Personally, my best guess was that the voice was some sort of god that isn't really the Christian god, but was responsible for most of the events of the book (presumably the sudden powers the women possessed came from somewhere?). Tbh, I thought at the time I wasn't smart enough to totally get all of what Naomi Alderman was getting at.īut now googling this and looking back on it, it seems like many people aren't clear about what the voice is/represents?ġ.) What do you think the voice is? 2.) Why would Alderman choose to be so vague about what the voice represents how does that serve the story?ģ.) How do you feel about vagueness/ambiguity in stories in general? There have been a number of hypotheses, and it was one of many parts of the book I didn't really understand. The book doesn't reveal "who" the voice is. The voice encourages her to commit violence, and at the end she questions what the nature of the voice is.
One of the characters hears a voice in her head which she assumes to be god. Several years ago I read a book the Power by Naomi Alderman.
0 kommentar(er)
