Nature

Throughout the collection, natural imagery in dreams or stories come to represent the outside world and, therefore, freedom; for example, the horse fantasy in County and the tropical dreams in The Boy Who Dreamed Too Much. Additionally, such images visually contrast the collection's title, Graybar Hotel, to depict the separation of the inmates and the rest of the world.

Telephone

The phone becomes a substitute for communication with the world. Supporting this connection, in A Human Number, the narrator sometimes cares more about the sounds of the world than the person on the other line. The author directly connects the phone as a symbol of a separate world in The World Out There. In that story, a girl uses a phone to text, a foreign language or code to the narrator.

TV

In most of the stories, watching TV is one of the few activities available...