Sasha’s world consists of a series of temporary rooms and fleeting streets that shield her from society and distract her from the overpowering emotions she avoids confronting. The novel begins and ends in the same room, while Part 3 follows Sasha from room to room as she journeys to Paris for the first time. The rooms Sasha inhabits come intact with a social system of staff and fellow boarders representative of the greater social system that Sasha attempts to escape. Many of her interactions with those around her occur in the rooms and streets that populate her life. Unable to act fully independently away from the watchful gaze of these social systems, Sasha suffers under her exaggerated paranoia. Her inability to feel completely safe in these temporary places of refuge reflects Sasha’s greater struggle to find relief. Sasha will continue to feel unsafe in and vulnerable to the world around her so long as she is unable to find a place or sense of identity all her own.

Mirrors offer the opportunity for reflection both in the physical sense and in the emotional. Physically, a mirror provides a perspective opposite of that seen by the human eye; it provides the ability to see one’s self through the world’s eyes.