Why do you think Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is narrated from Gilda’s first-person perspective in the present tense? How might the novel be different if it utilized a nameless third-person narrator? What is Austin trying to communicate with her narrative choice?

Pigs appear routinely throughout the novel. What do they symbolize? What are different characters’ perspectives on pigs, and how do these perspectives tie into the larger themes of the novel?

Austin often uses symbolic objects to illustrate Gilda’s journey. Pick an object and analyze its symbolic and narrative function in the novel. What themes does it convey, and how so?