A Question of Power

The book’s title establishes that the concept of power is a regular source of conflict in the narrative. Sello provides an explicit answer to the “question of power” toward the end of the novel when he tells Elizabeth, “If the things of the soul are really a question of power, then anyone in possession of power of the spirit could be Lucifer” (199). A forceful spirit (“the things of the soul”) creates power, and so power is often negative. Power creates dominant personalities like Medusa and Dan—Lucifers. However contradictory, Sello also tells Elizabeth that power can be positive: “You were created with ten billion times more power than [Dan]” (199). Elizabeth’s journey coming to terms with her own power and agency is a driving force throughout the novel. Elizabeth alludes to her power before she explains her eventual growth and the conclusion of the narrative when she speaks of herself as a general and spotlights her unique circumstances. Elizabeth asks, “Who had ever had to live, over a period, with awful secrets and a nightmare like that, at once real and unreal?” (145). If Elizabeth wasn’t powerful, she couldn’t “continue the war with hell” (179).