The Voice in Naomi Alderman's The Power

Submitted by ThuliumNice t3_110b3ug in books

Several years ago I read a book the Power by Naomi Alderman.

>!One of the characters hears a voice in her head which she assumes to be god. The voice encourages her to commit violence, and at the end she questions what the nature of the voice is. The book doesn't reveal "who" the voice is.!<

There have been a number of hypotheses, and it was one of many parts of the book I didn't really understand. Tbh, I thought at the time I wasn't smart enough to totally get all of what Naomi Alderman was getting at.

But now googling this and looking back on it, it seems like many people aren't clear about what the voice is/represents?

I have several questions.

1.) 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?

3.) How do you feel about vagueness/ambiguity in stories in general?

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?). But then I kind of feel like that would make the voice in some ways an avatar for the author. So I always felt kind of confused about it.

I also usually find ambiguity in stories frustrating. 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.

Edit: to anyone who downvoted this, I hope you step on a lego

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BookishBitching t1_j89o2aw wrote

I always assumed it was a mental illness/auditory hallucinations. It's been a few years since I read it, but iirc that particular character goes further and further into her ideologies, going so far as to establish a new religion based on them.

But perhaps that's my own personal reading, given my deep skepticism of the Bible. (I'm fond of the funny idea that the angels described were just peacocks, and someone was tripping hard.)

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ThuliumNice OP t1_j8amc0m wrote

This is very reasonable. Thank you for sharing.

I laughed at your idea that angels were peacocks :)

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JohnTaylorson t1_ja75qjp wrote

I really don't think there's anything to it other than poor writing on Alderman's part. It's easier- and lazier- to leave something 'mysterious' than it is to make something genuinely ambiguous and open to a number reasonable explanations. Like the rest of the book, she seemed to make it up as she went so I never found anything intriguing or worth exploring about the voice in Amy(?)'s head.

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Helstar-74 t1_j8a0i6e wrote

We could see what it is in the incoming tv-serie (first episode on 31 March, Prime Video)

Yes, all options are on the table. Either it's a God(ddess), or Allie is schizophrenic/got multiple personalities, or (not my own idea but i found it so good that I want to add it) somebody is projecting her thoughts to her (another application of the ''power''), somebody who cannot reach directly to her because she is tetraplegic or terminal, maybe even her real mom.

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ThuliumNice OP t1_j8am9i5 wrote

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this.

How are you liking the tv-series?

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Helstar-74 t1_j8atvix wrote

For now there's only the trailer out on Youtube (look at the reddit page https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePoweronPrime/ ). First episode will be released on 31 March (one each week, 10 episodes).

I hope it will be ''meta'' like the book, else a lot of people won't be able to understand its message... they must introduce the male author and his top business friend (the woman writer) at the beginning, though I'm pessimist about that. Maybe they gonna appear at the very last episode (or... worst case scenario, never)

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highorderdetonation t1_j8gf41v wrote

If memory serves (it's been a minute since I read it) the Voice basically accompanies that particular character until nearly the end of the book...and then starts talking to another character, >!relatively shortly before the outbreak of WWIII at the end of the book!<. Could it be similar cases of schizophrenia or whatnot caused by everything? Sure. Could it be the Devil? I can see it.

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