Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The City We Became, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cities and Gentrification
Community, Diversity, and Prejudice
Ethics and Nature
Beliefs, Concepts, and Stereotypes
Art
Abuse
Summary
Analysis
Leaving for work, Aislyn sees a “white pillar” in her yard. She realizes the pillar, like the tendrils, is an alien thing only she can see. Walking to her car—a Ford hybrid Matthew loathes for anti-environmentalist reasons but helped her buy “because at least it’s American”—she sees another pillar in the distance. She’s going to her library job, which she’s technically not allowed to have because the city requires a B.A. and she only has an A.A.—the head librarian hired her “off the books” in exchange for Matthew fixing the librarian’s parking tickets. Aislyn doesn’t drive many places other than her job, because Matthew keeps track of how many miles she drives and she’s worried he’s bugged her car with a GPS tracker.
That only Aislyn (as well as, presumably, other avatars and residents the city chooses to empower) can see the pillars and the tendrils emphasizes their alienness, the fact that they don’t belong. That Matthew hates hybrids but helped Aislyn buy one because it was American made shows the conflicts and incoherencies within his prejudices. The revelation that Matthew checks how much Aislyn drives and may have put a GPS tracker in her car, meanwhile, illustrates once again that he is controlling to the point of abusiveness.
Themes
Aislyn gets in the car, looks at a tendril on her rearview, and asks the Woman in White to speak with her. Suddenly, Aislyn sees in her rearview mirror a white room in which the Woman, wearing yet another body, appears. The Woman says she’s realized why Aislyn was angry and says Conall was “bad” and “foolish” to grab a city, who could have destroyed him. Aislyn thinks back to that morning’s breakfast, where she learned Conall had convinced Matthew that he heroically fought off a trespasser. She clarifies that the Woman knows how Conall behaved.
The reader has just learned that Aislyn fears Matthew has put a surveillance device in her car. Now the reader learns that the Woman in White actually has put a surveillance device—one of her tendrils—in Aislyn’s car. The parallel between Matthew’s abusive behavior and the Woman in White’s makes clear that despite the Woman’s friendly façade, she is trying to manipulate and control Aislyn. The trivializing language the Woman uses to describe Conall’s assault of Aislyn—“bad” and “foolish”—also makes clear that the Woman is either downplaying what the tendril-infected Conall did or genuinely lacking the human concepts that would allow her to understand why Aislyn is so upset.
Themes
The Woman in White tells Aislyn that the tendrils don’t allow her to puppeteer people. Instead, they “encourage preexisting inclinations.” Recalling a nature program about a parasitic fungus that zombifies ants, eats them slowly, and then causes their heads to explode, Aislyn demands to know why the Woman is sticking tendrils in people at all.
The Woman in White’s claim that the tendrils “encourage preexisting inclinations”—rather than controlling people’s behavior wholesale—gels with Bronca’s belief that the Alt Artistes must have already been sympathetic to bigotry and violence before the Woman in White infected them. If the Woman is telling the truth, then the tendrils represent outside forces stoking a community’s divisions, prejudices, and hatreds for its own ends—but the divisions, prejudices, and hatreds need to have already existed within the community. The parasitic fungus Aislyn remembers is likely Cordyceps—to which Manny compared the tendrils earlier in the novel. By again associating the tendrils with a parasite, the novel makes them seem like a horrifying yet merely natural phenomenon, rather than a weapon wielded by an intelligent entity. Yet Aislyn’s question about why the Woman is infecting people implies that the infections are not natural or inevitable—they are the result of an unethical choice on the Woman’s part.
Themes
The Woman in White, noting Aislyn’s horror, asks to explain. Aislyn sees motion in her rearview, and then the Woman pixelates into reality in her back seat. Though Aislyn almost reacts with terror, she doesn’t, for several reasons. First, her upbringing has “programmed” her to see “evil” in non-white, ugly, disabled, and/or male people. Though Aislyn knows the Woman isn’t what she appears, she looks like a good person to Aislyn. Second, Aislyn subconsciously worries that if she screams and Matthew comes to police his property, the Woman may put a tendril in him—and Aislyn’s terrified that a tendril will make Matthew’s violent, controlling behavior even worse. Third, Aislyn is “agonizingly lonely,” and she half-believes the Woman is her friend.
Though the novel often compares the Woman in White and her tendrils to natural phenomena—sea creatures, plants, fungi, etc.—here it describes the Woman pixelating into reality as if she were a high-tech hologram. By associating the Woman with advanced technology, this passage emphasizes that the Woman is an intelligent entity making choices that can be judged in ethical terms—not an unthinking animal or a disease that cannot help how it naturally behaves. The description of Aislyn as “programmed” to be racist, ableist, and scared of men, meanwhile, suggest that Aislyn’s prejudices aren’t natural or inevitable either—her family taught them to her. That Aislyn gives the Woman the benefit of the doubt because the Woman looks female and white—even though Aislyn knows the Woman may not be either of those things—show how thinking in stereotypes prevents people from really grasping the reality of their situations. Aislyn’s fear that a tendril infection could escalate her father’s abusive behavior makes clear that she senses both Matthew and the Woman are dangerous—yet the “agonizing[]” isolation she suffers as a result of her father’s control over her life makes her willing to accept even an unsafe, abusive friendship.
Themes
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The Woman in White tells Aislyn to start driving and pats her shoulder. Aislyn feels a sting and, realizing the Woman has tried to embed a tendril in her, flinches—but no tendril takes root. The Woman sighs. Aislyn refuses to acknowledge either the Woman’s frustration or her own “relief,” because she wants to “feel some kind of belief in herself” and so doesn’t want to interrogate the “judgements and biases” that have led her to trust the Woman.
This passage explicitly addresses why Aislyn is vulnerable to the Woman in White’s manipulations. Her “judgments and biases”—in particular, her racist bias in favor of other white people and her fear of men—make her trust the Woman, who looks white and female. Aislyn needs to reflect critically on herself before she can see the danger the Woman poses. Yet having experienced her father’s emotional abuse and Conall’s attempted assault, Aislyn desires the comfort of self-esteem and “belief in herself”—comforts incompatible with self-criticism. Ironically, then, Aislyn’s abuse history makes her less willing to recognize that the Woman is behaving in controlling, abusive ways toward her. Yet the Woman’s inability to infect Aislyn suggests that Aislyn still retains some internal defenses against the Woman’s manipulations.
Themes
Aislyn points to the white pillar near her house and asks what it is. When the Woman in White claims it’s an adapter cable, Aislyn asks what it’s adapting. The Woman explains its adapting her reality to humanity’s. For a moment, Aislyn is dumbfounded. Then the Woman again commands Aislyn to drive, saying she shouldn’t draw attention to herself—the Woman can’t protect Aislyn all the time, as proven by São Paolo nearly “g[etting] to her.” Then the Woman celebrates Aislyn’s rebuff of Paolo. To herself, Aislyn admits she liked hurting Paolo as she hurt Conall.
The Woman’s claim to be protecting Aislyn—when the Woman just tried to infect Aislyn with a tendril—illustrates how abusers sometimes pose as their victims’ defenders. Aislyn’s pleasure at hurting both Paolo and Conall again shows how stereotypes and generalizations warp her thinking: because Paolo was non-white and male, Aislyn assumed he was as dangerous to her as Conall, though Paolo was in fact trying to help her.
Themes
Aislyn asks the Woman in White to tell her what’s happening. The Woman says the pillars are “possibility,” and she’s been erecting them where our reality’s “muons” are “friendlier.” Aislyn, remembering that a park service employee eyeballed her sexually the one time she went to the park, asks whether the Woman is erecting the pillars everywhere she goes. The Woman says no—only places where Aislyn has “rejected this reality.” Aislyn tells herself not to feel frightened or manipulated, even though she doesn’t fully comprehend the Woman’s explanation, because the Woman is kind, nice-looking, and truthful. The Woman praises Aislyn’s tolerance.
A “muon” is a kind of elementary subatomic particle. The Woman in White’s casual use of the term suggest that she comes from a species with highly advanced physics. That the muons are “friendlier” where Aislyn has “rejected [her] reality” again emphasizes that in the novel, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs can change the physical structure of the external world. This science-fictional conceit draws the reader’s attention to how people’s emotions and biases determine what world they perceive—as, for example, Aislyn won’t let herself feel frightened and manipulated and so can’t perceive the Woman’s cruelty. That the Woman praises Aislyn’s tolerance is, of course, a joke—Aislyn is willing to tolerate extradimensional aliens if they look like white women, but she’s racist and xenophobic toward other people.
Themes
Aislyn returns to the subject of the adapters. The Woman in White stumbles over her explanation, complaining that humans don’t understand their own or other realities. When Aislyn admits she didn’t know there were multiple realities, the Woman tells her there are myriads, which is precisely the trouble. In the beginning, there was only one reality containing life, and it was “beautiful.”
The Woman in White’s distaste for multiple realities—her praise for a single, “beautiful,” original reality—hints that she is able to manipulate racists and bigots because she shares their dislike of diversity and preference for homogeneity.
Themes
Suddenly, in the rearview, Aislyn sees the white room again and, inside it, a moving color and a round black object that reminds her of chocolate snack cakes whose name she thinks might have been “Ding Hos.” The Woman in White, meanwhile, is explaining that there were no cities in the original reality, and that the original reality’s inhabitants find cities “monstrous.” She laughs sadly. Aislyn agrees that cities are monstrous—dirty, overcrowded, crime-ridden, and bad for the environment. The Woman insists that while Aislyn’s claims are correct, cities are monstrous for another reason. Aislyn, seeing the Ding Ho suddenly pause, wonders whether it’s real, a visual trick, or a weird daydream.
Aislyn’s oddball comparison of the mysterious round black object to a snack cake suggest she lacks the relevant concepts to make sense of what she’s seeing. That the Woman in White laughs “sadly” after explaining that the original reality’s inhabitants find cities “monstrous” is strange—what reason does she have to be sad?—and foreshadows future revelations about the Woman’s relationship to the living cities. Yet her insistence that cities are monstrous reminds the reader that, according to Bronca, cities’ births obliterate neighboring realities and all their inhabitants. Despite the Woman’s abhorrent tactics, then, she has an understandable reason for wanting to prevent cities’ births.
Themes
Finally, the Woman in White explains that cities are monstrous because, rather than keeping to their “ecological niche,” they are “invasive”—smashing into and destroying thousands of other realities: “numberless intelligent species are wiped out every day.” When Aislyn expresses confusion, the Woman asks whether she’s read Lovecraft. Aislyn has, a little, at the urging of a senior librarian coworker.
Just as the novel has previously described the Woman in White’s invasion in terms of natural phenomena like predator-prey relationships, so the Woman compares living cities to an “invasive” species overflowing their “ecological niche.” While the Woman clearly understands the horror of “numberless intelligent species […] wiped out every day,” she seems to treat cities’ destruction of other intelligent life as a scientific and environmental fact rather than as an ethical problem. When the Woman invokes Lovecraft in her attempt to explain, the reader ought to be suspicious—as Bronca and Yijing have already explained, Lovecraft espoused intensely bigoted and fearful views.
Themes
The Woman in White tells Aislyn that Lovecraft was correct in seeing cities as fundamentally different. The cultural exchanges that occur in cities, such as eating new foods, learning new languages, or mimicking others’ patterns of behavior, are excessive. Aislyn asks why you shouldn’t learn languages; she once taught herself a little Gaelic, though she forgot most of it for lack of conversational partners. The Woman in White claims that she isn’t judging humanity’s “nature,” merely diagnosing it as a problem—because when humans’ urban cultural exchanges create a great city, that city destroys myriad realities and all their inhabitants. The Woman asks Aislyn whether, given that fact, Aislyn can understand why the Woman must intervene.
The Woman in White suggests that urban diversity and cultural exchange drive cities’ births—and so are responsible for the deaths of neighboring realities and all their inhabitants. This odd piece of world-building casts diversity in a negative light. Since the Woman in White has invoked Lovecraft, we might expect her to be lying or confused—but Bronca, who has no reason to lie, also believes that diverse urban areas, in creating great cities, give rise to mass death. It is not clear whether the novel intends this part of its mythology to allegorize the environmental costs of large cities. The revelation that Aislyn once taught herself Gaelic but forgot it for lack of conversational partners both suggests that her xenophobia is limited to non-white foreigners—she’s fine with foreign languages spoken by white people—and reminds the reader of her social isolation. Finally, in claiming not to judge humanity’s “nature,” the Woman suggests that human beings cannot help but build cities that destroy neighboring realities. By implication, this urban destruction is in human “nature,” so humanity must be destroyed to be stopped. The Woman’s invocation may remind the reader of the Woman’s conversation with Bronca, in which Bronca denied the existence of fixed human nature—which hints that perhaps humanity’s cities need not be so destructive.
Themes
Aislyn does understand, yet she wonders whether these horrible facts count as “evil.” In her mind, she compares the Woman in White to a vegan coworker who tells Aislyn that when she puts honey in her tea, she’s participating in bees’ enslavement. Aislyn thinks this claim is incorrect—bees and humans are “symbiotic”—but also, honey isn’t that big a deal.
The cities’ births may not be “evil” inasmuch as the city residents who bring about the births don’t know about or intend the deaths they’re causing. Yet Aislyn’s intuition that the deaths in question are like honey—just not that important—suggests either that she’s unable to conceptualize the scale of death the Woman is describing or so xenophobic that she’s incapable of seeing value in intelligent nonhuman life. That said, her memory that humans and bees are “symbiotic”—a word that can technically refer to parasitic relationships but usually refers a relationship between two species in which both benefit—hints at the possibility that humans and aliens from other dimensions could form mutually beneficial rather than destructive relationships.
Themes
Timidly, Aislyn suggests that humans and other entities could learn to live together. The Woman in White says, “It’s been tried.” She goes on to say that, since her creators made her to help them understand humans, she knows humans aren’t inherently “evil”—but that “understanding doesn’t always help.”
The revelation that humans and extradimensional aliens have “tried” to cooperate in the past implies that—if the Woman is telling the truth—her destructive campaign against human cities isn’t a kneejerk, vengeful reaction but a last resort. The Woman’s reference to her creators reminds the reader that the Woman was constructed by entities that occasionally hurt her for failing in assigned tasks—in other words, the Woman is, like Aislyn, the child of abusive parent(s). The reader may also wonder what kind of creation the Woman is: a robot? A computer program? A genetically modified organism? Something else entirely? Finally, the Woman’s defeated admission that humans aren’t “evil” but “understanding doesn’t always help” hints that while many conflicts may occur due to stereotyped thinking, faulty concepts, and other forms of misunderstanding, some conflicts are based on real, intractable clashes between different people’s or groups’ well-being.
Themes
Aislyn parks at the library and asks the Woman in White whether Aislyn should call her a Lyft. The Woman praises Aislyn’s consideration, touches her hand, and asks whether she knows the Woman doesn’t hate her and “wish[es] circumstances could be different.” Touched and unable to square the Woman’s friendliness with talk of “multiverses and inevitable doom,” Aislyn reassures the Woman that she does know and that things will be all right. The Woman calls Aislyn “a good dimension-crushing abomination” and promises to protect her as long as possible. Then the Woman vanishes.
The mention of a Lyft reminds the reader once again that gentrification and homogenization of New York City, spurred by global companies, seems to predate the Woman in White’s invasion. When the Woman tells Aislyn she “wish[es] circumstances could be different,” she is revealing that she thinks destroying humanity is necessary and unavoidable, not really a choice—but also that, despite her manipulative behavior toward Aislyn, she may have some real affection for her, illustrating that abusers can care for their victims and still hurt them. Meanwhile, Aislyn’s inability to comprehend “multiverses and inevitable doom” shows once again that she lacks the conceptual understanding to grasp exactly what the Woman in White intends to do.
Themes
