A central conflict woven throughout Linda Hogan’s novel, Power, is the two opposing world views represented by the Taiga people and the people of the town. For the Taiga people, no distinctions lie between nature and society. Nature holds the answers; life makes sense only in the light of natural processes. Hogan imbues the landscape with human qualities. The land is living, it runs through the veins of the Taiga people. Searching for a way to explain Ama’s killing of the panther, Omishto feels unable to recount the story during the trial. “(Omishto) can’t say that what (Ama) did on that one day seemed like a natural thing… like how the world does things on its own… it creates destruction so that it can go on” (126). Ama kills the panther shorten its suffering, and she conceals the panther’s sickness and suffering from the tribe so that the tribe may live on. Ama is like the earth, her destruction inextricably linked to creation. Nature does not leave dry and crumbling leaves on trees in Autumn. Dying leaves fall to the ground and fertilize the soil, providing the bed for new life, new leaves. Fall is the world creating destruction. Killing the sick and starving panther is no different for Ama – she is like the wind that blows through and brings the dying to the ground so that new life may form.
Hogan, Linda. Power, W.W. Norton and Company, 1999.
