Liminality

Throughout the novel, Ada only inhabits liminal spaces, never truly belonging to one side of any binary. Ada’s liminality is built into her very essence, for she straddles the binary between human and divine. Ada is both the daughter of Saachi, a human, and the daughter of Ala, the ultimate mother goddess. As a result, Ada does not live in the human world, nor in the divine world, but somewhere in between. The We clarify that Ada has “one foot on the other side and the gates in between,” and therefore “reality was a difficult space for her to inhabit” (27). In effect, Ada’s reality is unique, for she is balanced in a liminal space between two binary oppositions, and this liminality is essential to Ada’s character.

Ada’s liminal status between concrete spaces is woven into the way she sees the world, for...