The Intersecting Self in “Paper Girls”

Paper Girls offers readers an iteration of a supernatural conceit by which to explore the concept of self-evaluation, one that has been used for centuries in the works of authors from Dickens to Claremont: the intersection of time-displaced versions of yourself. #PaperGirls 1/8

The most-famous iteration of this device is perhaps Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” in which Ebeneezer Scrooge is ushered through visions of both his past ambitions and his future despair. This prompts him to immediately re-evaluate his choices and commit to change. 2/8

The device is also famously favoured by X-Men author Chris Claremont, who makes frequent use of time travel, alternate dimensions, and visions of the future to confront characters with the concept of a “dark destiny” that they must reconcile. 3/8

Decades later, and still in the pages of X-Men, the device would play a key role in launching Brian Michael Bendis’s run on that title, which featured the original X-Men summoned to the present in order to, essentially, shame Cyclops out of his terrorist ways. 4/8

The central philosophical question that this device can frame is, “what would your younger self think of who you/they became?” In Paper Girls, this leads to a number of compelling outcomes, ranging from increased self-awareness to carpe diem. 5/8

In all instances, the encounter with the time-displaced self offers a visceral encounter with the knowledge that we live in a world of choices and consequences where change can be so gradual it’s imperceptible…until we juxtapose the past and future self. 6/8

In Paper Girls *SPOILERS* we see a character fighting for her life, knowing that she will die and letting that knowledge ultimately impact how she must live. We also, however, see a character figure out, to some degree, her own complicated sexuality. 7/8

All in all, the “confrontation with alternate self” plot offers a rich variety of different potential existential questions for the reader to confront in themselves regarding the choices they have made and the delicate continuum between childhood ambition and adult reality. 8/8