Linda Hogan Power Essay

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The book “Power” by Linda Hogan is very rich with literary devices like juxtapositions, foreshadowing, symbolism, and personification. It is about a Taiga Native American named Omishto, who sees a Taiga woman named Ama, kill an endangered Florida panther. Omishto, whose name means “the one who watches”, starts viewing Ama as something bigger than herself. The image of Ama is represented as an animal, power, and spirituality.
Ama is described as an animal. When she was twelve she lived with the Taiga elders and when she returned to town she had changed. “...now she was an animal come back to observe us to see if our manner of worldly conduct toward them was right and kind” (Hogan 22). In the western world being animal-like is seen as a bad thing, as she is often criticized for it. Omishto’s mother always talks about Ama like she is uncivilized because she is one with nature and believes in the Taiga stories. In one of the stories a woman must sacrifice a panther in order to restore order to the world. Ama is recreating this story, but …show more content…

In order to restore order in the world a panther must be sacrificed. The spirit world gave Ama the power to do this task, she couldn’t have done it alone. Ama’s power in the spirit world contrasts her power in the real world, a juxtaposition. In the human world, she has very little power because she lived halfway between the Taiga world and the westernized one. “To living halfway between the modern world and the ancient one” (Hogan 23). During the western trial, the judge was suggesting that Ama committed the crime to obtain power. “Now, he says she was trying to get power. ‘Power,’ I say back to him. ‘What's that?’ ‘In the spirit world’ (Hogan 130). It’s the opposite of that. She got power to do the task, not because of it. When she was banished by the Taiga she lost all her power. However, she knew that would happen all along, because when she had killed the panther she, metaphorically, died

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