The City and The City

“It was, not surprisingly that day perhaps, hard to observe borders, to see and unsee only what I should, on my way home. I was hemmed in by people not in my city, walking slowly through areas crowded but not crowded in Beszel. I focused on the stones really around me--cathedrals, bars, the brick flourishes of what had been a school--that I had grown up with. I ignored the rest or tried.”

The picture interprets the quote by showing the people walking by who are uninvolved with the game going on around them. The people in bandannas are ignoring those walking by and vice versa. The girls walking toward each other step out of the way of one another without acknowledging the other. The people walking by are reacting to the others, but they are not interacting or even seeming to notice them. The two groups focus on their surroundings without noticing each other, just as those in the novel do.