From its first chapter, City of the Beasts explores the frequent and surprising dissonances between outward appearances and internal realities. Throughout the novel, hardly anything is what it seems: the frail Morgana turns out to be a thief; the ferocious Kate becomes a nurturing figure in Alex’s personal development; even the golden city of El Dorado is revealed as a kind of mirage. 

The starkest example of this persistent duality comes from the Amazon itself, as well as the native people who live there. Alex quickly learns that the jungle is both stunningly beautiful and terrifyingly harsh, as when Joel Gonzalez is attacked by the anaconda shortly after Alex enjoys swimming with dolphins in that same river. Similarly, Leblanc describes the natives as “brutal warriors, cruel and treacherous” (54), but once Alex and Nadia actually meet the People of the Mist, they discover the tribe to be largely peaceful and welcoming. The most menacing and mysterious figure in the book, the Beast, also proves to be very different in reality than in reputation. It is neither inherently violent nor magical in nature; rather, its existence, though wondrous, is completely within the bounds of science and rationality.  

Allende points even more explicitly at the essential differences between surface and inner truth in her exploration of Alex and Nadia’s respective totem animals.