the exit that is the bars: the both-cages seam
What looks like the cage’s exit is actually the bars of the cage.
Context
The seam where the two cages of the book fuse into one: the way out is the bars, the door marked EXIT opens onto no exit, and the cage has migrated inside the prisoner. Read as film it is Jim's Free Show; read as addiction it is the plainest possible statement of the trap — the thing she'd reach for to escape is the thing holding her, and it is no longer outside her to be escaped at all.