54 pages • 1 hour read
Tricia LevensellerThe Shadows Between Us
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Social Hierarchies and Classism
As a novel that takes place at court, The Shadows Between Us reveals social hierarchies within the nobility and Alessandra’s mostly unrepentant classism. Alessandra’s quest for power is primarily selfish; while she wants to change things in her society, she mainly focuses on changing the things that would benefit her the most. As a high-born lady, Alessandra cares primarily for issues that affect high-born women. Her quest for power, moreover, leads her to leverage social authority for her own gain. When she receives bountiful invitations after her courtship with Kallias is announced, Alessandra goes through them with an eye only for social advantages: “Invitations from duchesses and marchionesses go in one pile. Countesses and viscountesses in another pile. And those from baronesses I don’t bother to open” (64). Her ruthless quest for power causes her, particularly in the beginning of the novel, to see people as equivalent to their status.
Though Alessandra’s friendship with Hestia and Rhoda leads her to begin to look beyond title somewhat (as long as she is within the upper classes), she is still unable to understand why Rhoda cares so much for her manservant: “I’m still baffled by how much she interacts with her manservant, but I like her enough not to say anything of it. I can be nice to Galen if it’s what Rhoda would want” (90). Alessandra does not conceptualize being kind to Galen because he is a person himself but merely because his upper-class employer wishes her to do so. This indicates that, even as Alessandra becomes marginally kinder to those around her, there are still many elements of her selfishness that do not shift throughout the book. Even Rhoda, who eventually falls in love with Galen, speaks of him dismissively: “Galen was his valet, you see. And after my husband died, I just sort of kept him” (49). Servants receive no respect from Alessandra. Rather, she views them as symbols of their employers’ power and immediately attributes perceived failures to the servants themselves. When she orders her room packed and returns to find that it hasn’t been, Alessandra thinks, “Those lazy, horrible servants” (178), and hastens to scold them before learning that Kallias ordered her rooms not be packed. She naturally does not blame Kallias for this decision.
Alessandra makes a nod toward a more just class awareness toward the end of the novel when she speaks to Rhoda about courting Galen, despite his lesser social status. She says,
I’ve never taken you for the kind of woman who would care for class distinctions, especially when you’ve said for yourself you don’t need to marry for money. Besides, your ranking system went for looks, manners, and personality. Title wasn’t included (296).
This shift in attitude is not revisited, however, and Galen’s “worthiness” as a partner for a noblewoman is increased when Kallias gifts him a title, rendering the question moot.
Antiheroes and the Draw of Power
The archetype of the antihero refers to a protagonist who lacks the traditional moral qualities of a “hero” character. An antihero often is unrepentantly immoral or exhibits a gray morality. Despite their adherence to moral standards or heroic qualities, male antiheroes, particularly highly masculinized iterations of the archetype, are frequently celebrated in popular media and admired for their refusal to be constrained by typical societal rules. Antiheroes who are female are frequently more heavily criticized for being unlikeable. This sexist double standard demands that female characters must be “good” (meaning moral, kind, friendly, or any other characteristics associated with traditional femininity) in order to be “good” (interesting as characters).
In The Shadows Between Us, Levenseller resists this demand that women characters, more than their male counterparts, be “likable” by presenting a partnership between Alessandra and Kallias, who both exhibit the qualities of antiheroes. Levenseller, from the novel’s start, presents these characters as well matched, able to keep up with one another in terms of wits and schemes. When they first dance together, Alessandra thinks:
Keeping his eyes on mine, the king advances a step, and I move backward with the motion, following his lead. This style of dance is more improvised, rather than having a set choreography to adhere to, and I can’t help but wonder if the king is somehow testing me with it, seeing if I can keep up (27).
Rather than finding Kallias’s challenge off-putting or threatening, Alessandra finds herself fascinated by his mysterious power, which she longs to understand and ultimately possess. Their first dance serves as a fitting metaphor for their relationship during the early parts of the novel as each of these schemers determines whether they can trust the other—and, if not, how they can exploit the relationship to their benefit.
Both Alessandra and Kallias are characterized by a hunger for power, a hunger that is often characterized in literature as a corruptive force. For antiheroes, however, this force of corruption has an unclear origin: Does the questionably moral antihero want power because they are corrupt, or are they corrupt because they wants power? Alessandra is unrepentant about this desire and doesn’t question its origin. She wants power because she wants it. This is, for her, sufficient reason. She says, “I want to be a bigger part of the world around me. If I’m seen and respected, others will value my opinion. I want the power to change things” (57). This desire for the power to change things, however, is not an unselfish one. Alessandra delights in the admiration of others and makes changes that primarily benefit herself. When she speaks with Orrin, she thinks, “I have to physically shake off that last conversation. Charity. Orphans. The devils wasted good looks on such a man” (65). The function of antihero as protagonist in The Shadows Between Us flips the morality of a traditional hero narrative, rendering Orrin, a Robin Hood-like figure who steals from the rich to give to the poor, a minor antagonist in the text. The narrative voice of the female antihero thus emerges as a powerful force, one that can both resist sexist stereotypes about what is “acceptable” from female characters and inculcate readers into the questionable morality of this narrator, urging readers to identify with a character who does not embody (nor seek to embody) goodness.
Sexism and Purity Culture
Alessandra’s world is one that is characterized by sexism, which iterates itself particularly in the strict purity culture that applies disproportionately to women. This culture denigrates women who have sexual relationships, dictating that “proper” young women cannot have premarital sex. Alessandra, who enjoys sex and frequently has sexual relationships with men, dislikes this dictate and views it as an impetus for her desire for power. She thinks, “Ladies aren’t permitted lovers before marriage. Just one of the many laws I will change once I’m sitting on the throne” (40). Though she changes enormously throughout the novel, this is one aspect upon which Alessandra remains consistent. At the end of the novel, she advises Hestia, “Waiting. Not waiting. One lover. A hundred lovers. There should be not judgment either way. A woman is not defined by what she does or doesn’t do in the bedroom” (369). Materially, Alessandra manages to effect some change in how women are permitted to discuss their sexual histories or desires; after confiding to Kallias that she has had sex with multiple partners and finding him unconcerned, she reveals her sexual history to the women at court and encourages them to do the same.
She further makes efforts to correct sexist attitudes around women’s sexual purity when she encounters them. When Leandros flirts with Alessandra, he says, “The poets say a virtuous woman’s worth is above rubies. I should think the king values you more than all the precious gems in the world combined. I know I would if you were mine,” to which she retorts, “The poets can say whatever they damned like. A woman’s worth is not decided by what’s between her legs but by what’s in her mind” (119). Kallias is shown to be more progressive than Leandros, saying, “I’ve made a point of doing my best to give ladies the same rights as men. It’s what my mother would have wanted” (192). His comment, though more accepting of women’s rights than others in his kingdom, reflects a common criticism that real-world feminists have of men who argue for women’s rights on behalf of their mothers, sisters, daughters, or other women relations, suggesting that women’s rights should matter because women are people, not because they hold relationships with men. Kallias is not alone, however, in allowing his culture to seep into his otherwise forward-thinking views on gender. Alessandra muses, assessing how much she enjoys her friendships with Hestia and Rhoda, “I thought women were always my competitors, people to be jealous of. How wrong I was” (369). Though both characters are represented as having feminist ideals, they are both simultaneously represented as having further to go in their feminist ideology before embracing a true attitude of gender equality.
