DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2024.v12i06.001

Pages: 182-191

British science fiction writer Naomi Alderman's seminal work The Power constructs a thought experiment on how divergent bodies influence power structures. In a cybernetic world arising from genetic mutations of women, the body, imbued with symbolic attributes, becomes a tool for achieving liberation and equality. This paper aims to employ close textual analysis, drawing on Nietzsche's phenomenology and Wilhelm Reich's political psychology, to explore the intrinsic connection and dialectical relationship between the body and power. The body, as a tangible entity, a locus of strength, and an embodiment of life, forms the solid foundation of power, serving as a potent driving force for its development and its primal origin. Simultaneously, the body undergoes transformations under authority and contributes to the reproduction of social structures. Power itself harbors profound conflicts of force, thus inevitably sparking continuous and intense struggles as long as the will to power exists. The Power, as a cybernetic-themed speculative fiction, offers new possibilities for power dynamics, reflecting Alderman's imagination on constructing the human destiny community.