The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“Reason and rationality reigned supreme, and there was no room for magic or mystery. There was no room, it turned out, for little girls who wandered off the edge of the map and told the truth about the mad, impossible things they found there.”

After giving the historical context for the beginning of the 20th century, January contrasts the societal value of “reason” with her supernatural, but true, discovery of a Door. Because the discovery of other worlds would bring change and chaos to his own world, Locke squelches January’s finding in the name of peace and prosperity. 

“People are always uncertain about me: my skin is sort of coppery-red, as if it’s covered all over with cedar sawdust, but my eyes are round and light and my clothes are expensive. Was I a pampered pet or a serving girl? Should the poor manager serve me tea or toss me in the kitchens with the maids? I was what Mr. Locke called ‘an in-between sort of thing.’”

January’s skin color contributes to Harrow’s theme of race as a social construct. She does not fit into society’s classifications of either black or white, so people are unsure of how to treat her. People’s reactions to January’s in-between coloring show how society in the 20th century assigned value to people based on their skin color. 

“I wondered if Africans counted as colored in London, and then wondered if I did, and felt a little shiver of longing. To be part of some larger flock, to not be stared at, to know my place precisely. Being ‘a perfectly unique specimen’ is lonely, it turns out.”

Harrow’s comments on race here and throughout the novel show the disparity between society’s views of black people and white people in the early 20th century. Harrow also highlights January’s desire to belong, even if it means belonging to a community treated as inferior. January struggles with her “in-between” skin color, and just like the rest of the human race, wants to fit in. As January steps into her identity later in the novel, she discovers that being “in-between,” like her name suggests, is where she belongs.

“I glowed. I had been weighted, and found worthy.”

As a child, January seeks approval from Locke to the point where she finds her worth in his acceptance. Her quest for his love continues throughout the novel, and even lingers when she discovers his role in keeping her family apart. January’s desire for love and acceptance from a father figure echoes every human’s need to feel love, and shows that finding self-worth in another’s approval can inhibit one from pursuing one’s purpose. 

“Dogs, of course, are infinitely better judges of character than people.” 

January trusts Bad’s judgment about people, and he proves himself several times as a good judge of character. This statement rings true when he takes a liking to Jane, growls at the old woman who turns out to be Ilvane in disguise, and alerts January to Ilvane’s invisible presence on the train. January’s friendship with her dog saves her on more than one occasion, and Bad’s friendship is as true as any human’s could be. 

“Power, my dear, has a language. It has a geography, a currency, and—I’m sorry—a color. This is not something you may take personally or object to; it is simply a fact of the world, and the sooner you accustom yourself to it, the better.”

Locke’s words reveal the early 20th-century reality that wealthy, white, English-speaking people held power while others did not. His opinion that this unbalanced power should thrive unopposed coincides with his crusade for peace and prosperity in the world. However, over the course of the novel, January discovers that change is necessary and good, which leads her to reopen Doors to bring change to the world. Harrow shows that racial injustice is personal; it should be objected to and overthrown. 

“Mr. Locke looked as he always did: squarish and neat, seeming to reject the aging process as a waste of valuable time. He’d had the same respectable dusting of white hairs at his temples my entire life; the last time I’d seen him, my father’s hair had turned almost entirely ashen.”

January’s description of Locke’s physical features serves as an example of Harrow’s use of foreshadowing. The comparison between Locke’s youthfulness and Julian’s rapid aging hints at the coming plot twist that Locke has been alive for two centuries. Harrow foreshadows several plot elements throughout the novel as a way of keeping the reader guessing about the story’s ending. 

“I’d heard it all so many times I could probably deliver the rest of the speech myself: how the hard work and dedication of persons like themselves—wealthy, powerful, white—had improved the condition of the human race; how the nineteenth century was nothing but chaos and confusion, and how the twentieth promised to be order and stability; how the discontent elements were being rooted out, at home and abroad; how the savage was being civilized.”

Locke’s desire to keep power and wealth in his own hands motivates him to destroy Doors. Although his sentiments appear noble at times, such as maintaining “order and stability,” the cost for this goal comes at too high a price. In the name of preserving peace, Locke wants to silence the voices of those who are not like him, subdue cultures and races to assert power, and close Doors to avoid change. 

“There’s only one way to run away from your own story, and that’s to sneak into someone else’s. I unwedged the leather-bound book from beneath my mattress and breathed in the ink-and-adventure smell of it. I walked through it into another world.”

While at Battleboro, reading her father’s book keeps January sane and gives her the courage and self-confidence she needs to escape. This exemplifies one of the books major themes: the power of books and words. Not only does The Ten Thousand Doors provide a mental escape from January’s seemingly hopeless imprisonment, but it also motivates her to attempt escape from the asylum to look for her parents.

“In my experience, the people you cared most about did not linger. They were always turning away, leaving you behind, never coming back—but Samuel had waited.” 

Unlike Locke and her parents, Samuel does not betray or abandon January. He comes to her window at Battleboro to deliver The Ten Thousand Doors along with the handwritten encouragement, “Hold on January” (152). Samuel’s loyalty continues throughout the novel. He gives her the love and acceptance she needs before she even realizes she’s searching for it.

“It struck me as darkly, terribly funny that all my good behavior and polite questions couldn’t get me into this office; but a little howling and thrashing had brought me right to his door. Perhaps I ought to howl more often. Perhaps I ought to be again that obstreperous girl-child I was when I was seven.” 

In Battleboro, January nicely asks to see the doctor on several occasions in order to plead her case, but can only see him for bad behavior. Her reasoning that she should “howl more often” relates to Harrow’s theme that silencing someone allows one person or group to assert power over another. Instead of staying silent, people must speak out against their oppressors and cause a disruption in the social order to overthrow those in power. 

“The truth is that the powerful come for the weak, whenever and wherever they like. Always have, always will.”

Havemeyer’s chilling words to January emphasize the theme that those in power have historically gained and maintained power by subjugating others. Rather than valuing people, Havemeyer and Locke use people as means of staying in control and getting their way. As January gradually asserts her own identity and power, she uses her ability as a word-worker to do the opposite—introduce change and opportunity to the world.

“Doors, he told her, are change, and change is a dangerous necessity. Doors are revolutions and upheavals, uncertainties and mysteries, axis points around which entire worlds can be turned. They are the beginnings and endings of every true story, the passages between that lead to adventures and madness and—here he smiled—even love. Without doors the worlds would grow stagnant, calcified, storyless.”

Yule explains to Ade the value of Doors for bringing necessary change to the world. Without Doors, all the worlds they connect would never be able to change, grow, and improve. Even though Doors bring seemingly dangerous change such as revolutions, these changes give voices to those silenced by others. Harrow points out the value of change for the world, and makes the reader consider how changes to the world throughout history have shaped the world he or she lives in today. 

“You don’t really know how fragile and fleeting your own voice is until you watch a rich man take it away as easily as signing a bank loan.” 

After Locke sends her to Battleboro despite her sanity, January realizes the fragility of her own voice. Until now, she has bowed her nature and behavior to Locke’s will, but begins to take her own steps in the world and assert her identity. January’s acknowledgment of her voice’s value relates to Harrow’s theme that people stripped of their value and right to speak deserve a voice. 

“Oh, I know: I grew up in a sprawling country estate, I traveled around the world with first-class tickets, I wore satin and pearls—hardly a perilous childhood. But it was borrowed privilege and I knew it. I’d been Cinderella at the ball, knowing all my finery was illusory, conditional, dependent on how successfully I followed a set of unwritten rules. At the stroke of midnight it would all vanish and leave me exposed for what I truly was: a penniless brown girl with no one to protect her.”

January knows that all the wealth and privilege she grew up with brought her protection from the harshness of the world. Without Locke’s wealth and whiteness to shield her, society will treat her as valueless. This shows the way wealth, status, and whiteness interconnect with one’s value in the eyes of society. 

“I looked at Samuel’s pale face below me, at Bad with his splinted leg, at Jane, jobless and homeless on my behalf, and it occurred to me that, for a supposedly lonely orphan girl, there were a surprising number of people willing to suffer on my behalf.”

Facing Havemeyer at the cabin, January realizes that for the first time in her life, she is not alone. She has true friends next to her, willing to protect her. This realization of acceptance and belonging gives her the courage to step forward in bravery and face Havemeyer, and later gives her the courage to step into her identity and power as a Door opener.

“There are rules about wealth and status, borders and passports, guns and public restrooms and the shade of my skin, all of which change according to my precise location and timing.”

As Julian travels around the world, he encounters a variety of socio-cultural expectations. His observations of the world show the relativity of societal expectations regarding race and wealth. They also develop Harrow’s theme that people in power create societal rules in order to manipulate the social scale to tip in their favor. 

“There are empires upon which the sun will never set, railways that cross continents, rivers of wealth that will never run dry, machines that never grow tired. It’s a system too vast and ravenous to ever be dismantled, like a deity or an engine, which swallows men and women whole and belches black smoke into the sky. Its name is Modernity, I am told, and it carries Progress and Prosperity in its coal-fired belly—but I see only rigidity, repression, a chilling resistance to change.”

Although “Progress and Prosperity” for the world sounds like a positive ambition, Harrow makes the reader question what these words truly mean for the world. In the 20th century, they came at the cost of control and subjugation of entire countries and people groups. Julian’s words suggest that change is essential to the world, because it allows people to fight for what they believe in, voice their opinions, and overthrow their oppressors. 

“In my life I’d learned that the people you love will leave you. They will abandon you, disappoint you, betray you, lock you away, and in the end you will be alone, again and always.”

January has a difficult time allowing herself to reciprocate Samuel’s love. Even though she has feelings for him, she knows that loving him would leave her vulnerable to disappointment if he were to ever leave or betray her as her father and Locke did. January’s fear of opening herself up to love relates to any reader who deals with abandonment by a friend, parent, or loved one. 

“I might be young and untried and penniless and everything else, but—I clutched the pen in my hand until my knuckles were white crests—I was not powerless. And now I knew no Door was ever truly closed.”

After reopening the Door to Arcadia, January recognizes her ability to open Doors, and discovers a new direction for her life: to reopen Doors, starting with the Door to her parents. After feeling powerless against Locke’s expectations and her father’s absence her whole life, January now knows she has the power to pursue her family and be herself. Even though she doesn’t have wealth or much experience in the world, her special ability to open Doors gives her confidence and direction. 

“I caught a wavery glimpse of myself in a plate-glass window—mud-caked, oversized boots, sweat drawing damp lines through road dust at my temples, pinkish-white scars scrolling haphazardly from wrist to shoulder—and it occurred to me that my seven-year-old self—that dear temerarious girl—would’ve been rather taken with my seventeen-year-old self.”

After all the years of changing herself to please Locke, January finally realizes her identity as a brave, independent, and somewhat wild adventurer. She has become the explorer she wanted to be as a little girl, and is living her own adventure story like all the heroines she read about. Her realization marks the end of Locke’s control over her, and the beginning of the life she was born to live.

“‘Hello sir,’ I whispered. The will to be polite, to maintain civility and normalcy, is fearfully strong. I wonder sometimes how much evil is permitted to run unchecked simply because it would be rude to interrupt it.” 

When January comes face-to-face with Locke after realizing he knowingly kept her family apart, she still feels a strong pull to maintain the good behavior he drilled into her. Harrow points out the ease and magnetism of going along with what’s comfortable and polite, rather than pushing back against evil. 

“He didn’t understand the horror of it, the violation. He didn’t understand that reaching into someone’s mind and sculpting it like living clay is a species of violence far worse than Havemeyer’s.”

Locke’s wickedness comes in a different form than Havemeyer’s. Rather than causing physical pain and harm, Locke causes mental harm by taking away his victim’s freedom of thought. January’s acknowledgment of Locke’s evil shows that a person’s will and thought processes make up one’s identity more than a person’s body.