The Man Made of Smoke

As transitional places or states of being, liminal spaces exist at the boundary between spaces and modes of existence. Doors and thresholds are an example of liminal spaces, as are the hours of dawn and twilight. In the novel, liminal spaces constitute a recurrent motif, illustrating the theme of The Ordinary Face of Evil. Since liminal places, such as the service station, are transit points, people don’t pay them much attention, which makes them a spot in which evil can operate facelessly. The Pied Piper killer capitalizes on this aspect of liminal spaces to take James undetected through the service station. Another liminal space is adolescence, which Dan describes as being caught between childhood and adulthood. When Dan is tested by the Pied Piper in the service station, the limbo of the liminal space means that he’s “no longer a child, allowed to be scared of monsters; not yet a man, capable of taking responsibility” (369). Caught in this space, Dan doesn’t know the correct course of action.

Associated with the blurred boundaries between worlds, liminal spaces are also darkly magical. Dan notes that he has always been drawn to corridors, dark corners, and doorways because he can sense that these are places where anything can occur.