Theme of Power in Harold Pinter's the Homecoming

Corrupting power has been showcased through many stories like Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Throughout Macbeth, the desire for absolute power is the main drive for the two main characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. They are consumed with a great craving for ultimate rule, and are willing to achieve it by whatever means necessary. Power had corrupted the thoughts, actions and behaviors of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. As a result of their greed, selfishness and longing for supremacy, they were unable to escape the tragic fate at the end of the play that was a result of their own doing.

There are different kinds of power. There is, of course, the power over another person. A power in superiority, in dominance that makes people afraid. There’s power in acceptance too. Any person who has been welcomed by their peers has more power than one that has not. In my own life, I struggle with power, and what kind of power I should want. My need for power likely stems from a fundamental desire to fit in. Some days the power I crave is simply in acceptance. Acceptance from peers, friends, or family. On other, less agreeable days, the power I desire is in superiority, dominance, the power to make people listen to what you have to say. In the short story Saint Marie by Louise Erdrich, Marie, like me, seeks power. However, the power she craves is in relation to God and the convent she has been raised to look up to. At the convent, Marie struggles between wanting acceptance from the Sisters and desiring superiority over them, especially Leopolda. The first, acceptance, Marie mentions before joining the convent: “I was going up there to pray as good as they could” (1). Marie strives to be as good: as holy as the Sisters. Once she joins the convent, she hopes to be accepted by them. Superiority, the second kind of power, she uses as a threat to Leopolda. Marie threatened that she would “get to heaven first,” and when Leopolda arrived, she would “shut the gate” (5). Here, she strives for superiority over Leopolda by blocking her out of heaven rather than

In this text, Rose eloquently utilizes pathos to create an emotional connection towards the blue-collar workforce. Rose also writes about his family members to try to establish a connection between readers and his memories, so that the reader could relate and begin to understand the requirements of such careers. These experiences demonstrate how passionate workers like Rosie and uncle Joe are about their careers, and how their passion encourages them to seek further ways to learn and improve. Throughout his article Rose vividly recalls the stories for the audience, “Rosie took customers’ orders, pencil poised over pad, while fielding questions about the food. She walked full tilt through the room with plates stretching up her left arm and two cups of coffee somehow cradled in her right hand” (Rose 3). The reader is better able to grasp the fact that blue-collar careers require more intense cognitive abilities than other social classes give them credit

What defines power in today’s society? Is it money? Privilege? Status? In Chapter 2 of Justice And The Politics of Difference, entitled “The Five Faces of Oppression,” Iris Marion Young offers a unique perspective on what power really is in modern day society and how oppression plays a role in it. According to Young, power is the result of having a concrete societal position that grants you respect and opportunities from people (A page would be nice right here.). However, Young argues that this “power” is so reliant upon your perceived status and worth from individuals, that if lacking these things, you then become vulnerable to oppression. Oppression

Occupation was also used by Harte to capture the lifestyle of the characters. Among these characters are professional

Some theorists believe that ‘power is everywhere: not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere… power is not an institution, nor a structure, nor possession. It is the name we give to a complex strategic situation in a particular society. (Foucault, 1990: 93) This is because power is present in each individual and in every relationship. It is defined as the ability of a group to get another group to take some form of desired action, usually by consensual power and sometimes by force. (Holmes, Hughes &Julian, 2007) There have been a number of differing views on ‘power over’ the many years in which it has been studied. Theorist such as Anthony Gidden in his works on structuration theory attempts to integrate basic

Here we see Lady Macbeth calling dark spirits to take away her pureness and give poison just so she could have the power to kill the king showing us she has no guilt, which shows us the non-violent “female” traits are just as powerful as violent “male” ones.

The actions of a powerful individual can be psychological interpreted with a single statement: “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The general idea of power is to show leadership amongst a community, but there are distinctly two types of power a leader has. A socialized influence which benefits the community or a personalized power that results in the personal gain of the leader. The corruption of power occurs when a leader, whether it is subconscious or not, allows personalized power to dominate their socialized influence. Robert Penn Warren uses All the King’s Men to illustrate that power is corrupting and results in the destruction of political machines through the ideological views of Willie Stark, the unethical decisions he is compelled

Dictionary.refrence.com states that power is the delegated authority; authority granted to a person or persons in aparticular office or capacity. An individual's power is dependent on their class, race, gender and their roles in society. Authors show power through text in many different ways. In The Crucible Arthur Miller shows how men have more access to power than women, especially the lower class. Women have less power than men, regardless of their partner's status because women are thought of to be less capable, and lower than men.

Abigail Williams ,a 17-year-old Puritan girl, is a good example of power abuse because once she realizes that an accuser can be powerful, she takes on the role. To cover up that she’s been dancing in the woods she blames Tituba, a servant, and others for her crimes. She first throws Tituba but under the bus, so she can get out of trouble. “I never called him! Tituba. Tituba” (85). When

An excessive amount of Power can create a dictatorship, and can fabricate an emotionless human. Macbeth, is a play written by William Shakespeare, it is about a man who becomes obsessed with the idea of becoming the king of Scotland and when he is king, Macbeth, is misguided by power. Whereas The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a literary novel, written by John Boyne, talks more on how German authoritative figures, used their power to abuse the Jews. Abuse of one’s leadership is portrayed in many various ways throughout both texts. To add, violence was divulged in both texts, due to the fact that power can only be abused, if the authority decides to become violent, thus ending all peace and justice. Fear, was in Macbeth and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, because authoritative figures who were in power, used fear to control the one’s who were not, also certain characters were affected by fear for it was used to traumatize themselves. In Macbeth and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, the major common theme shared in both texts was the corruption of power. The characters within Macbeth and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, abuse their leadership roles, bring on a mass of violence, and cause a tremendous amount of fear.

   Furthermore, Narrator gives nicknames to his three employees, which can be seen as an example of the

In conclusion, Shakespeare illustrates the theme of violence by writing about three murders committed by Macbeth. Macbeth starts off hesitant about murdering someone, but by the end of the play, he has no hesitation whatsoever. He uses violence to achieve power, gain power, and keep power and overtime it corrupts him. His violent actions lead to his overconfidence, which eventually lead to his downfall and death. This is what violence can do to a person. Just ask

William Shakespeare displays how oppression can stem from a formerly unjust relationship in the play King Lear. While the character of King Lear descends into madness, his three daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, all suffer from the dominance of their father as he begs for their love. During this time of power transition, the daughters turn their oppressing father into the oppressed. Through the use of juxtaposition in how Lear's three daughters oppress him, Shakespeare conveys how previously oppressed people can free themselves from the ill-treatment and inflict pain on the former oppressor, a concept that is prevalent in today's society with the increase of sexual assault victims speaking out and exposing their perpetrator.

Power is defined as a political action coerced to exercise or to pursuit. It influences and controls the content of political power. The theory of power is argued by Niccolo Machiavelli, Hannah Arendt, and Karl Emil (Max) Weber. Machiavelli’s position stood that power is held by individuals. As for Arendt, she believed power was maintained within groups, while Weber believed power lied in institutions.