The scene for the story Durrell's narrator tells is the dusty, modern Alexandria of the 1930s, "an exotic city of constant interactions between cultures and religions", and with a cultural milieu that mixes exceptional sophistication with equally remarkable sordidness. Justine is portrayed by Durrell in a manner which 'mirrors' Alexandria in all of its complexities, with its mixture of elegance and extreme poverty, and its ancient Arab ways co-mingled with modern European mores. Durrell's Alexandria is a city where Europeans exist alongside Egyptians, and Jews and Christians exist alongside Muslims, and his characters, especially his lovely protagonist, she of the "somber brow-dark gaze," mirror the city. For Durrell, his protagonist Justine is the essence of Alexandria, its "true child…neither Greek, Syrian, nor Egyptian, but a hybrid."