What is power? and why does everyone want it so bad? There can be various ways to answer this question but to put it simply power is what controls and can defines us. Power can be having more money than another person or even having more knowledge. Power can be a feeling too. It can feel like you have control over someone or something. Or you can feel the opposite, you can feel powerless, which is, when you don’t feel in control at all, almost like you’re free falling. Whichever one a person is at the moment, they’re both very strong feelings. In this blog I’m going to show some examples from the pieces my class has read on the effects of feeling power and powerlessness.

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Sometimes people can be in control over some situations or other times people can be completely powerless and not know what to do. In the story “Where are you going, where have you been” by Joyce Carol Oates, it’s about a girl that is wild and acts out because her parents constantly compare her to her sister and she rebels against them and tend to think she’s better because of the comparison. A guy becomes fascinated with her and finds out everything about her life, he eventually uses it to manipulate her. The man uses only his words to get inside her head, this is a use of his power and trying to make her feel powerless, which he succeeds at. This girl could have had power but in the moment but instead she let herself be powerless because of how afraid she was. She could have easily done things to protect herself but he had control over her and manipulated her into thinking he was right and she eventually went with him. This whole story showed how easily people can be manipulated into giving up their power and freedom by a couple of sentences coming out of someone else mouth.

A story I really liked and thought was a good example at taking back the power was, “Persepolis” by Marjane Starapi. In this comic book style story a girl who, in my opinion, was dressed completely conservative got roadblocked almost on her way home by these older women who were basically supposed to keep things in order. Well these women didn’t approve of what she was wearing and were going to take her away. The young girl then manipulated them into letting her go. In this story the little girl took her powerlessness, and twisted and turned it into power. She could have felt bad and let them take her and gotten into real trouble, like how the girl in the first story let herself get manipulated and kidnapped. Instead she stood up and used her brain power to get out scratch free. This shows even in situations where you feel you might not have power, you do. People just need to dig a little deeper to find their power sometimes.

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