Isolation
Several of these stories feature humans who are shaped by chronic isolation. The salesman in "The Hitch-Hikers" does not like to be alone, so he picks up strangers—even violent strangers—to keep him company. Even there, though, he is defined by his isolation, because he does not connect with those strangers. When someone dies in his car, he is completely unfazed. Other depictions of isolation are found in "Why I Live at the P.O.," when a girl prefers an isolated life of homelessness to the constant bickering of a competitive family, and "A Piece of News," when an isolated housewife named Ruby becomes socially paranoid to the nth degree.
The dark side
Many authors excel at defining the resilience and heroic nature of humanity, but when Eudora Welty gets to writing, it isn't that side of the human experience that stands out. It is the dark side of human nature that Welty excels at capturing. In these several short stories, we see the horror of absolute paranoia, the damage of social isolation, the dysfunction of an angry home, the deaths of many characters, and sociopathic characters who don't care about suffering at all. Her ability to capture human nature led to a short story about a Civil Rights leader's assassination that had not happened yet, but then did happen after the story was already written.
Romance and love
The dark side of romance is also depicted in the book. For instance, a young couple comes to town having discovered a "Petrified Man" who is guilty of four counts of rape. The opening story shows "A Piece of News" where Ruby Fisher learns she might be shot by her husband, and cannot make sense of the report. In "A Memory," a woman longs for her lovers touch, someone she was only able to touch once in a brief caress, and as she remembers in sublime ecstasy, a raunchy annoying couple interrupts her day dream, setting up loudly on the beach next to her.
