power and Water for Elephants

In Water for Elephants, power is survival. In the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, the ranking order of the circuis society -- performers or working men -- determines whether an individual will get paid or even if an individual will survive the night on the train. With the ranking order of the circuis society comes the power of each position. The ringmaster Uncle Al holds the most power with the Benzini Brothers and he exercises that power throughout the novel. He makes decisions that cost lives, for example by determining that the animals that compose the circuis itself are more important than the workers that make the machine function. He also makes decisions that determine the work, the actions that fill up the lives of the working men and the performers, ultimately controling the lives of everyone working on the circuis through his position of power. Uncle Al's suicide in the end of the novel when the Benzini Brothers collapses serves to give the sense of justice because he murdered countless men working on the circuis for the profit of the circuis because the animals took top priority. His death in the end of the novel sends the message that power leads to the death of humanity specifically because in the novel humanity is no better than a pack of beasts.