59 pages • 1-hour read
The Space Between Worlds
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains depictions of addiction, graphic violence, physical abuse, anti-gay bias, and murder.
Identity as Both Static and Fluid
Micaiah Johnson’s The Space Between Worlds explores the concept of a fixed self, presenting identity as a mixture of both fixed and fluid traits—some of which are innate, while others can be drastically reshaped by environmental and social factors. Using the premise that reality itself is an infinite multiverse, the novel often suggests that who a person becomes depends greatly upon their circumstances. As Caralee travels between the different versions of Earth, her own psychological quirks contrast sharply with those of her doppelgängers, and even her current life on “Earth Zero” is only as real as her performance of the late Caramenta, whose place she has secretly taken. However, although her encounters with the various versions of her family and coworkers in other worlds suggest that each person is the product of a lifetime of unique choices and privileges, this pattern is also obliquely challenged by the presence of key traits and weaknesses that manifest in different versions of the same individual across multiple worlds. In this way, the novel gives rise to a deeper exploration of whether there is such a thing as a core, essential self.
No matter which world she inhabits, the protagonist’s life is a constant act of performance, and her every move reflects her belief that identity is a role one plays rather than an inherent quality. Upon assuming the life of her doppelgänger, Caramenta, Cara studies her predecessor’s journals in order to mimic her personality, effectively learning a script for a new life. This sense of performance can also be seen in her self-conscious code-switching whenever she must shift between the rarified, upper-class reaches of Wiley City and the lowly, toxic atmosphere of Ashtown; in both places, she feels like an imposter who is “always pretending, always wearing costumes but never just clothes” (29). Unable to find a place where her multifaceted identity can exist unadorned and undisguised, she commits to the necessity of playing multiple roles for the sake of survival even as she ironically loses parts of herself in the process.
The stark contrast between Cara’s alternate selves in the multiverse further develops this theme, and her frequent ruminations on the demises of her many doppelgängers emphasizes the idea that different environments can transform a single individual into fundamentally unique people. On Earth 255, for example, Caralee is a wealthy Wiley City philanthropist who is adopted into privilege after fortuitously wandering away from Ashtown as a child, but on Earth 175, Caralee’s doppelgänger Nelline remains in Ashtown and becomes the target of a despot’s violent abuse. As the protagonist bitterly notes, if she herself—the Cara of Earth 22—had been a wanderer as a child instead of a climber who retreated to her own rooftop for solace, she too might have enjoyed a rescue similar to the version of her that exists happily on Earth 255. Thus, the author uses multiple examples to show that these divergent paths stem from a single change in circumstance.
While Cara’s own path as a traverser reinforces the idea that identity is infinitely mutable, the other recurring characters in the novel are often used to suggest that certain traits manifest within each version of an individual and may therefore be part of a core self. This opposing pattern implicitly challenges the idea that selfhood is based entirely upon a gradual accumulation of life experiences. For example, every version of Nik Nik, even the most benevolent, demonstrates the capacity to revel in the “thrill” of maiming and killing others, and each version lusts after power in some form. Likewise, the ostensibly kind Adam of Earth Zero is eventually revealed to be just as ruthless and power-hungry as the abusive, paranoid Adranik of Earth 175. In the end, while the multiverse framework posits the existence of infinite versions of a person, each of which is a product of a different set of choices and fortunes, Johnson also uses these parallel lives to create a crucial paradox: the idea that a person’s key personality traits can persist in some form across a spectrum of possibilities that are otherwise dictated by external forces.
The Systemic Exploitation of Marginalized Groups
The Space Between Worlds uses a science fiction premise to build a powerful allegory for systemic class and racial oppression. Because individuals can only safely enter worlds in which their doppelgängers have already perished, the most effective traversers are ironically those whose impoverished or marginalized circumstances have caused their counterparts’ deaths on multiple worlds. The novel illustrates the idea that powerful institutions exploit the bodies and labor of marginalized communities, and the author implicitly argues that in such a ruthless context, a person’s value becomes nothing more than a social construct designed to serve the elite. Johnson therefore delivers a sharp critique of all systems in which the disenfranchised are deemed worthless unless their existence can somehow benefit those in power.
The traverser program, which has been built on the calculated expendability of Ashtown’s residents, is the central mechanism of this exploitation within the world of the novel. The Eldridge Institute recruits impoverished BIPOC people as traversers specifically because their counterparts on other Earths are often dead, rendering them uniquely able to cross worlds. In Cara’s bitter-toned narration, they are explicitly referred to as “trash people” (5) whose only value to the powerful, sterile Wiley City is their likelihood of being dead elsewhere. The stark physical and social division that separates the walled city from the polluted wasteland of Ashtown thus serves as a constant visual reminder of this rigid and unjust hierarchy. Even as Cara strives to gain permanent admittance to Wiley City, she acknowledges that the lives of Ashtown residents are the currency that enables the city’s technological and economic dominance, and she constantly grapples with the grim fact that she and other traversers have become a disposable commodity.
The novel further demonstrates that this exploitation extends beyond physical risk to the disposability of marginalized labor. Adam Bosch’s secret operation to collect “dark data” from other worlds in order to engage in insider trading is clearly a representation of the ways in which real-world elites seek to profit directly from the peril of others. The most powerful illustration of this disposability can be seen in the fate of the minor character Starla Saeed, a veteran traverser who is summarily fired and deported from Wiley City when the death of one of Cara’s doppelgängers enables the protagonist to take over Starla’s assignment to Earth 175. Starla’s story reveals the system’s cold logic, proving that this society sees individuals as assets only as long as they remain useful. In short, their humanity is irrelevant to their corporate value. Through these examples, Johnson critiques real-world systems in which the advancement of the privileged is built upon the precarious and often dangerous labor of the marginalized.
The Search for Home and Belonging
In The Space Between Worlds, the truest concept of home is best defined as an elusive state of belonging: one that the protagonist struggles to attain. As Cara navigates an endless barrage of conflicting worlds and identities, Johnson uses the protagonist’s existential plight to suggest that a true sense of home can only be found by integrating the disparate parts of the self and forging authentic relationships in which a person’s every trait and flaw is wholly accepted. As Cara’s eventual reconciliations with Esther and Dell eventually show, the quest for belonging requires people to confront the deepest, most damning truths of their past rather than seeking to obscure their mistakes in a veil of obfuscation and deceit.
Cara’s feelings of alienation are central to her search for home. Having taken over another woman’s life, she now exists in a state of perpetual performance, and every situation forces her to deny a portion of her own identity until she feels like an imposter wherever she goes in multiple worlds. She is also torn between the social dictates of the classist Wiley City and the rougher conventions of her own native Ashtown, and both of these sets of social standards differ yet again from life in the pious Rurals. As her conflicted narration soon shows, Cara does not belong fully to any particular world, and this reality is reflected in her wardrobe of “costumes” that are designed to help her pass in one place or another. Her sense of being unmoored is also evident in her collection of artifacts from other worlds. These sealed bags of dirt, rocks, and trinkets represent a tangible but unfulfilling attempt to anchor her and create a sense of place. They are souvenirs from lives that she never lived, or else reminders of potential homes from which she has been permanently exiled, and the collection as a whole therefore underscores her feeling of living in the liminal “space between worlds” (16).
Ultimately, Cara finds the potential for home not in a place but in a person when her complex relationship with Dell evolves from one of performance and misunderstanding to one of authentic connection. Initially, Cara hides her Ashtown origins from Dell, believing that the watcher is so classist that she would reject Cara out of hand. However, it is only when Dell learns and accepts Cara’s true, complex identity, bridging the worlds of the privileged watcher and the Ashtown traverser, that the two are able to embrace a shared spirit of genuine intimacy and trust. Their final, tentative connection suggests that home can be created within a relationship that embraces multiplicity rather than demanding assimilation. Johnson therefore uses these two characters’ arcs to argue that true belonging does not require someone to choose one world over another. Instead, it is important to find acceptance for all the pieces of oneself, thereby creating a home in the space between.
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