What is Power?

I think power can be defined as the control over someone or even something (by someone). Rulers are what come to mind when we think of this and that is mainly who the power is controlled by. There are many examples in the world in the past and the present and from even the books we read that could support what I think the definition of power is and how power can be shown in different ways.

First of all, back to the Russian Revolution an example would be of Stalin. Stalin had power and control over his people in Russia. He had Trotsky exiled and he took over control of Russia’s government. The great purge was an event that happened under his rule, a night of fighting and a lot of arrests being taken place. “Animal Farm” is an analogy of the Russian Revolution so the reasons are still the same. Napoleon had control over all the other farm animals and gave them orders of what they could do and had the power to kill others when he thought he would be threatened. Julius Ceaser is another book we read and there were many people that had some power with them, but with that power things did get out of hand most people ended up being killed, Ceaser being the first. Another example could be from “The Hunger Games”. All the 12 districts are ruled and under the control over the Capitol, and after the rebellion the rulers had the power to punish them all, but making the annual hunger games, just to show that they had control over everything. On page 6 it says “When I was younger I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country from the far-off city called the Capitol. I understood that this would lead to only more trouble.” This quote from the book shows that the rulers could punish the people of Panem for saying rude remarks about them.

I think power can also be showed off by the wealth of one region/country. For example, during the cold war the two “Super Powers” at that time was the U.S and the USSR. They both suffered the least after the world war and had ‘wealth and prosperity’. The U.S and the USSR were both two of the most powerful countries at that time because they were both full of weapons as they were trying to get ahead of each other in the arms race. The other countries such as Germany were in bad shape and even after the treaty of Versailles they were restricted to building weaponry, as Germany had been a leader in world war one and had been responsible for causing it.

I think these examples from the books we have read and topics that we have covered give us a basic idea of what power is, such as leaders that control the power like Stalin and even Hitler. From these examples we can see how power can be defined as “Someone or something under the control of someone.” Because in all of these examples, there is always a group of people under the control of someone. However, there could be even more factors that we have not considered yet with what exactly power might be.