In “The Reach,” King continually revisits the theme of the separation of the island and the mainland. He uses Stella to show how isolated an islander, and in many cases “islandness” in general, can be from the rest of the world. Stella, who is very much rooted in her own place, never experiences anything outside of what she already knows. That being said, she has witnessed the “shrinking” of the Reach, or, as I understood it, space-time compression. Still, she was able to hold true to her self (until the end of the story) and not leave the island. She never interacted with other people or places, and also never really changed her lifestyle. She was very much rooted in the island, and the distinctions between space, place, and time more or less evaporated because she never even inhabited another space. She in a sense avoided the changes happening in the world around her, molding her entire life around one, singular space. This also obviously has broad implications on the role of Goat Island in all of this. Its actual geographic location on the map can account for nearly all of Stella’s life experiences. Without inhabiting Goat Island’s space, she never would have been able to make it her place. This may sound obvious, but it is important not to downplay the role that islands can have in a person’s experience. They act as a vehicle in facilitating one’s experiences, and, in the case of Stella, can be instrumental in the avoidance of space-time compression.