During my initial read through of Power by Linda Hogan, I struggled to find direct parallels between the fictional story and environmentalism. Discussion in class on Friday really cleared things up for me. I particularly gained a lot of insight from the juxtaposition of the two trial scenes.
In the first trial scene (in the actual court room), the court asks Omishto to take the stand as a witness. Before she does, Ama pleads of her to tell the truth – about everything except the panther’s sickly appearance. Omishto does exactly this, but Ama still gets away clean. She narrowly escapes conviction in the formal court, and is promptly released following the trial.
However, the story within the tribe differs quite a bit. Because the Taiga people worship the panther so much, they believe that Ama committed a terrible, unforgivable act. Omishto continues to hide details about the panther’s sickness. The tribal elders sentence Ama to four years of “walking”, which translates to four years of banishment from the tribe. After Ama walks away from this trial, Omishto does not see her for the remainder of the novel.
I now understand the real reason why Ama did not wish for the elders – or anybody, for that matter – to know about the poor state of the panther. The Taiga have such a strong image of the panther in their minds, and Ama believed that knowing about its weaknesses would diminish their image of it. It would cause them to lose all hope and to lose track of what they believe in. The parallel between the panther and the earth, at least to me, is striking here. The “white world” – where the official trial happened – cares so little about the panther (nature) that it dismisses the killing (ignorance). However, the Taiga tribe – the real activists – believe in something higher, and place a higher importance on the panther (nature). This is why their sentence for Ama is so much harsher than the one given by the “white world”. However, by hiding the true weakness of the panther, Ama gave the Taiga people hope. She allowed them to continue believing in something greater, and in this way she is the greatest activist of all.
If the book were to continue beyond the last page, I would speculate that Omishto becomes a large voice in the tribe. She saw everything that Ama did just to preserve the tribe’s beliefs – it should empower her to do more to prolong its belief system. And at the root, that’s exactly what activism really is – people continuing to hope and believe that we will find a solution.