Consider each story in turn, and discuss how each of the book's three themes (the influence of drugs and addiction, the need for and value of human contact, and the tension between desperation and compassion) is explored, in either positive or negative terms.

What is your interpretation of the outwardly directed violence exhibited by the narrator in "Two Men?" What motivates it? What are the circumstances of that particular story that lead him to display violence in that situation only?

What is the symbolic value of the broken brakes on the narrator's car (as referred to in "Two Men" and "Dundun")? What actions and/or circumstances and/or attitudes not only in those two stories but in the collection as a whole are represented?

There seems to be a connection between the endings of "Out on Bail" and "Emergency" - specifically, between the narrator's...