What literary element is used in Audre Lorde's "Power" and what is its significance in the text?

The literary element used in Audre Lorde's poem "Power" is monologue. The poet, using a narrator, is vividly presenting views in first person—this narrator is talking directly to the audience in everyday language and not mincing words at all. The significance of using the literary/poetic device of monologue is that the reader gets to experience the narrator’s views, beliefs, and emotions first-hand. There is no intermediary telling this story from a third-person point-of-view. The reader feels that he or she is there with the person.

The power of this monologue is its ability to shock the reader with unmediated statements from someone (this narrator) who has strong views about the issues of the day. These are the issues that affect her and her circle of influence. Consider this line from the poem:

and one day I will take my teenaged plug

and connect it to the nearest socket

raping an 85 year old white woman

who is somebody's mother

The power of this line, describing a horrible and immoral, despicable act, is that we, the readers, are hearing this from the “horse’s mouth.” The line is not presented to us in an objective, bland, third-person way, as if it is a dry item in a local newspaper. We are presented with all the venom and anger of the narrator, by the narrator.

This person has very strong opinions on race relations and the toxic history concerning the battle between blacks and whites in America. The narrator feels revenge may be the only option available if she does not learn to “to use the difference between poetry and rhetoric”, which she earlier stated was “being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.”

She does not want to get out of hand and become vengeful and violent, but she does want justice. She feels she may resort to terrible acts unless she learns to restrain herself. The significance of monologue in this poem is that it forces the reader to consider the terrible treatment some blacks have received in U.S. society (and beyond) over the centuries.

After reading this poem in its monologue from, the reader cannot deny the impact of the narrator’s emotions on his or her own views and feelings. Therefore, monologue is an “in-your-face” poetic element to lend force to the narrator’s beliefs.