View a FREE sample

1. Why does the narrator frequent support group meetings to rid himself of insomnia?

At the support group meetings, the narrator finds people who are close to death and have nothing to lose. It is those people he finds to be truly free from society's constraints. When he cries, even though he does not necessarily feel bad, it allows him to feel like the other group members and, in that sense, free.

2. When the reader first encounters Bob, what does he look like and what does he represent?

Bob had testicular cancer and his testicles have been removed. Because of the hormone medication he must take, Bob has developed what the narrator refers to as "breasts." Bob's appearance represents how the narrator feels men have been emasculated in society by materialistic desires and the way they are expected to behave. Essentially, Bob represents the castration of society's male population.

(read all 60 Short Essay Questions and Answers)

This section contains 4,882 words (approx. 17 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample