I am not sure if this feeling of being trapped is positive or negative in the case of the book. I say this because the city's seem as if they were meant to grab hold of you and in a way force their citizens to stay there, just as if they were a utopia in which you could either adapt, be joyous or at least fake contentment, or be extinguished by it. Until now, it seems almost as if you had no other choice than to accept the city you were placed in or born in. There was one specific phrase that made me feel this feeling of imprisonment, on page 12: "The city appears to you as a whole where no desire is lost and of which you are a part, and since it enjoys everything you do not enjoy, you can do nothing but inhabit this desire and be content." This description is employed as Calvino introduces Anastasia to us, a city that can be both "malignant and benign."
Calvino uses personification as he describes most of the cities. This technique is definitely well employed as it adds that certain fascination and in a way spookiness to each of the cities. With each phrase, Calvino grasps the attention of the reader more and more until he is drowning in a sea of powerful details.
