Sex and Power in Chapter 21


Sex appears very briefly in this chapter, as it focuses almost exclusively on the IM dealing with the loss of Clifton and the subsequent funeral. The only thing I could find that deals with loss was the particular grief that the young girls in the organization feel when they learn that Clifton has died, which is probably tied to their sexual attraction to him. Their grief is so intense that "one of the girls was still crying piteously when they went out" (449).

Power shows up in many ways in this chapter, most particularly with how much power and influence Clifton's death has over the IM, even after Clifton had died. This is seen when he grapples with the loss of Clifton in quotations like "Why didn't you hurt him and save him? You might have started a fight and both of you would have been arrested with no shooting..." (446).