Gothic Vocab: Liminal

Last year I started a series of posts highlighting vocab terms that will help you better understand the Gothic. So far, we’ve covered the sublime, the uncanny, and the grotesque. Today, I want to turn our attention to an adjective that is frequently employed to describe people, places, and situations in Gothic literature: “liminal.”

What exactly makes something “liminal”? Liminal comes from the Latin limen, which literally means “threshold.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as meaning “characterized by being on a boundary or threshold, especially by being transitional or intermediate between two states, situations, etc.” That pretty much covers how it gets used in discussions of Gothic literature. Liminal people, places, and situations are particularly well-suited to the Gothic, because things that lie on a boundary (either physically or metaphorically) are often difficult to comprehend or pack neatly into categories—and thus are ripe for exploring our fears and anxieties about the unknown and undefinable. They contain contradictions within themselves—much like the juxtaposition of the familiar with the unfamiliar in the uncanny—and these contradictions make us uncomfortable.

The context in which you will most often hear the term liminal when talking about Gothic literature is in the sense of “liminal spaces.” Liminal spaces are physical locations that are ambiguous, unnerving, and exist on a boundary of some kind. We can see this in the moors that feature prominently in Emily Bronë’s Wuthering Heights. In the novel, the moors serve as the boundary that separates the other two settings of the story: Thrushcross Grange (home to the Lintons) and Wuthering Heights (home to the Earnshaws). This wild land exists outside the bounds of society and allows for other boundaries to be transgressed: for example, the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff is primarily developed here, whereas inside the homes Cathy ultimately gives in to societal pressures and exchanges her love of Heathcliff for a more acceptable marriage to someone of her social class. This setting is also associated with the supernatural—local villagers claim to see Heathcliff’s and Cathy’s ghosts out on the moor at the end of the novel.

Other liminal spaces include literal thresholds like doors and windows—think of Cathy’s ghost tapping on the glass in Wuthering Heights—as well as passageways, staircases, abandoned buildings, and caves.

But it’s not just physical spaces that can be liminal; characters can also embody liminal states of being. An obvious example of this is the undead—creatures like vampires or even ghosts exist on the boundary between life and death. So does the prototypical “dying woman” in Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and poems, who teeters on the brink of that threshold. A more mundane example is the figure of the governess, such as the titular protagonist in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Above the household servants in status yet not on par with the wealthy family she serves, the governess exists in a liminal space between social classes. She combines characteristics of the upper and lower classes: usually of “good breeding” and skilled in the accomplishments expected of a lady, she is nonetheless impoverished and cut off from the necessary social connections. In Jane Eyre’s case, this liminal position as a governess ultimately allows her to cross over that threshold and move from one social class to another through marriage.

There are also liminal times of day—such as dusk and dawn, or the hours around midnight when one day is transitioning into the next. And temporary liminal states, like when one is dreaming—inhabiting a realm that exists within sleep, yet resembles wakefulness. What other examples of the liminal in Gothic literature can you think of? 

I hope you’re enjoying this series on Gothic vocabulary words! Let me know if there are any particular terms you’ve heard in discussions of Gothic literature that you would like to see me explain here. I always appreciate hearing your thoughts in the comments!