46 pages • 1 hour read
Linda HoganPower: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Panther
In the novel, the Taiga people are known as the Panther Clan, and the endangered mountain cat symbolizes the dwindling tribe. The Taiga tribe has 30 remaining in their number, which is about the same number of Floridian panthers left in the 1990s. Due to its endangered status, the cat is protected from hunting by state and federal laws. It is also believed to be a sacred ancestor of the Taiga tribe. When Ama kills the panther, she breaks the law but also kills a spiritual symbol of herself and her tribe. The mystery of why Ama killed the cat is a focal point of the story that illuminates the complexity of Indigenous and Western cultural identity, legal systems, and ways of knowing.
In the modern world, the idea of the panther is loved and protected while the actual animal is either a nuisance or the subject of ridicule and torture. The panther is the high school mascot, and the students bully Omishto and ostracize her for killing the cat. However, the same kids are also known to “tree” panthers— a process of trapping them there and threatening to shoot them. People in town are afraid of the cats and don’t want them to live nearby. Even the judge at the courthouse doesn’t care about the case or see why the panther’s death is a “big deal.” On the other hand, Taiga tradition reveres the actual animal, and they even have laws to determine how its body should be treated after death. Ama and the cat have a mystical bond; she believes that the panther was present at her birth, and it acts as a spirit guide in her life. Omishto concludes that this is why Ama sacrifices herself when she shoots the panther and also why Omishto believes that Ama was the worthiest person to do it.
The two groups of protestors outside the courthouse represent the clash of perspectives about the panther’s killing. The American animal rights group wants to protect animals and so judges Ama as wrong, despite being the descendants of invaders and part of the system that decimated the panther’s territory and poisoned the waterways. On the other hand, the Indigenous protestors support Ama’s actions based on her treaty rights but are acting according to American law and not the laws of nature. It is only Omishto who believes in the panther’s right to live above all else. In a moment of empathy and omniscience, Omishto enters the panther’s perspective, seeing its death as a sacrifice for the hope of Taiga’s rebirth.
Snakes, Frogs, and Locusts
Like the panther, many other Floridian animals are given spiritual significance in the novel. Snakes appear multiple times in the story, and Omishto’s changing reactions to them are markers of her character development. At first, they represent her Westernized perspective. She fears them, viewing the living landscape around her as dark and dangerous. In the opening scene, a poisonous water moccasin snake swims up to her boat and she pushes it away with her oar. She struggles to take in Ama’s perspective, who believes that the snake’s many defenses are gifts from God, and they should be respected. During the storm, Omishto is at first terrified of the snakes that wriggle toward Ama’s house seeking refuge, but when she goes outside to secure her boat, she feels less afraid, realizing that the storm is scarier than the snakes. When Omishto ultimately decides to move to the swamp to live with the old Taiga tribespeople, she loses her fear and can appreciate their beauty: “Last night I dreamed the snakes and lizards. Their new skins, freshly exposed, shine beautiful and bright” (234). From her new perspective, her survival is deeply interconnected with all natural creatures, and her view of the snakes’ beautiful “new skins” reflect her coming of age into her new self.
Perspectives on snakes signify the clash between Indigenous and Christian beliefs. When Ama is pinned to the side of the house with a snake at her feet during the storm, she is not scared of them. In Taiga tradition, snakes are gods. However, in the bible, the snake is the sign of the devil, and the tempter who leads to original sin. Omishto is caught between the Christian world of her mother’s church, who would see the snakes at Ama’s feet as a “bad” omen, and Ama’s belief in their divine nature. As the story progresses, Omishto separates her beliefs from her mother’s. Her mother believes that “she can touch a poisonous snake, the embodiment of all that’s wrong and evil and earthbound in the world, and not be harmed by it” (187). But Omishto does not see snakes as sinful, or the earth as a place from which people must save themselves; instead she sees nature, including snakes, as her strength and salvation.
Frogs and locusts are another Christian symbol that Linda Hogan re-envisions. In the Bible, locusts and frogs are sent as plagues by God to punish the Egyptians (Exodus 8: 1-4 and 10: 3-6), but they are portrayed as a sign of spiritual vitality in the novel. When Omishto has her first vision of the four female ancestors walking the road from Kili Swamp, locusts are singing. Frogs also appear at dramatic moments in the novel. Right before Ama and Omishto’s first sighting of the panther, Omishto hears the “drumming sound of frogs” and they “leap in the water” (61). But after Ama shoots it, “the frogs are silent” (66). The locusts and frogs make the noises of life, heightening the novel’s depiction of the interconnection between humans and nature. Their sensitivity to the events of life and death mirror Omishto’s perceptions; this relationship rises and retreats in sync with her connection to the land and animals.
The Storm
The storm symbolizes the power of nature, which can bring both destruction and new beginnings. The hurricane is stronger than all human society; it threatens both the Taiga elders and the townspeople. The striking imagery used to describe the incoming hurricane reveals its potency, as “[a] cloud, heavy and thick, is laying itself down on us, muting the sounds of the land” (21). In the novel, the sounds of animals indicate life, whereas the storm’s silencing of the land foreshadows the death of the panther, as well as the figurative death of Omishto’s childhood.
Hogan emphasizes the imminent clash of Western and Indigenous culture by describing the storm with a simile: the “clouds will join one another, force themselves together like two mad people” (26). The storm metaphorically and physically transforms the landscape of Omishto’s life, mysteriously propelling Ama and Omishto on their journey to follow the wounded deer and kill the panther and setting Omishto’s process of cultural preservation in motion. Its placement at the beginning of the novel sets it up as the dramatic event that leads to the real subject of the book, which is the ripple effect of the panther’s death across both communities.
Hogan uses elements of magic realism, a technique linked to Indigenous mythic rituals and beliefs, to demonstrate the spiritual power of the natural world in the Taiga way of knowing. The storm is not portrayed as a mere weather event but a living being who is seeking retribution for the violence done to it through urbanization. It is personified as “a calm heart dressed in a skin of fury” that “has no apology. It doesn’t care that I’m small and frightened” (33-34). However, despite its destructiveness, it is also believed to be a force of creation to the Taiga people. They believe that the wind is a god called Oni who breathes life into each person at birth. Even as her life is being threatened by the storm, Omishto is aware of its creative power, that there is “water running everywhere like something is being born” (35). The natural forces of birth and death are intertwined in the Taiga belief system, and are shown to be powerful because, like the storm, they cannot be overcome.
Furthermore, the death-like image of Ama’s as she is pinned against the house by hurricane winds in contrast with the birth imagery of Omishto’s nakedness after the storm foreshadows Ama’s sacrifice for Omishto’s survival. The storm is both a source of tumult and the inciting event that starts Omishto’s journey to maturation.
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