Similarly, and in keeping with the tradition of the history of mentalities, Darnton devotes a chapter to an analysis of a bourgeoisie's description of his city, in an effort to determine how an individual in a given social situation would interpret and make sense of the world around them. Darnton uses this description to demonstrate that the ways in which events might be portrayed might be completely unsupported by the ways in which individuals of the time might have interpreted those events.
Darnton explores how individuals from different social backgrounds perceive and interpret events in their environment, using a bourgeois's description of his city as an example. He demonstrates that the ways events are presented may differ significantly from how they were actually understood by people at the time.