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Analysis Of Richard Powers ' Work Gain Is A Tour De Force Of Whatever It Is Essay

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Richard Powers’ work Gain is a tour de force of whatever it is. I say this, rather than describing it as merely a novel, although that is precisely what it is, because Powers has herein created something more than your typical story. In this work, two seemingly unrelated paths are set on ambagious paths which will ultimately culminate in their intertwining. On one path we are presented with the apotheosis of a specific corporation’s development, and on the other is the idiosyncratic life of an individual living in a place where this corporation has its hand on virtually everything. Herein Powers has presented what is probably the most riveting illustration of a fictional corporation’s rise. In fact, it is so engrossed in detail that parts of it rival real corporate histories, such as The Great A&P and Nature’s Metropolis. The central question here is derived from more than everyday consumers being buffaloed by Machiavellian corporations. Rather, Powers ascertains the question of how have we come to be where we are? In doing so, Powers destroys the illusion that geography is solely composed of maps. His illustration of how a corporation can grow, and in seeming reaction to that growth an individual woman can wither, permeates the very texture of our lives. You see, it is this mode of production, for which we all possess profound disdain, that is the source of our everyday living and experiences. Long before you or I were born, business had already replaced nature as the

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