There is a red door in the middle of town. It is forbidden to look upon it. Those who are cast out of society are cast through the door and they never return. Aster has been dreaming about the red door, which is another problem, because in this community, nobody dreams. Dreams are forbidden.
This close-in view of a world focuses tightly upon Aster. When she is forced to flee and wrestle with the implications of her dreams, the world begins to open up onto a society that is frustratingly self-involved with no desire for exploration or growth. Everything about the system is designed to maintain the status quo, preventing any sort of progress by controlling the very desires of the inhabitants to imagine something more. Those in power will remain in power, and they will twist the truth however they need to in order to stay there. When change comes to the community of Hargrove, it comes riding a wave of destruction.
The story is myopically insular. Everything is so tightly focused on this single community that even the reading experience has an air of oppressive claustrophobia. The more Aster sees and experiences, the more things open up and the deeper the mystery becomes. We are left with a great many questions about the nature of the world and the truth about how the world works. The most important question, though, is that of Aster's responsibility to a community that shut her away, cast her out, and sought to destroy her. It's a significant question, as Aster alone has the ability to stave off the destruction the community of Hargrove has wrought upon itself.
But why should she? Shouldn't Aster be content with rescuing her friends and family? There are a few to whom she owes a debt for their own acts of compassion or for her previous hardness of heart. But there are many more in the community who have sought her harm, and whose determination to suppress the truth and eliminate dissension is leading directly to their own destruction. They have it coming. All Aster has to do in order to see justice done is ... nothing. And nothing is so very easy to do.
The thing about pain is that one cannot remove it from themselves. Revenge feeds it and multiplies it in new hosts. Ignoring it causes it to fester and breed uncontrollably within until it has consumed everything else. Pain must be taken away by someone else, by a friend, a parent - or by a complete stranger who has been mistrusted and shunned because Aster simply cannot see past her own suffering. Aster is ministered to by another dreamer who has chosen instead to suffer with the dreamless instead of leaving them in their hopeless state.
There is a clear parallel in Christianity. When Jesus came to Earth for the purpose of ministering to humanity, He was first made like us in every respect, assuming the full aspects and weaknesses of humanity in order to show us true love. (Hebrews 2:17-18) The power of that kind of minister reaches us where we need it most - and so it does for Aster.
The story is intensely personal to Aster. She must learn about herself. She must learn about her own pain. She must learn that she is not defined by that pain. Only then will she be able to reach past herself - past the close restrictions of her world - and into the world beyond. The Red Door is very much a coming-of-age story for young women, with some very personal and necessary things to say.
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