Trainspotting presents an apparent image of a fractured society. The 1996 film famously opens with a series of postulated choices: variables, essentially, in the delineation of identity and opposition. Significant here is the tone in which these options are provided: it could be considered the rhetorical voice of society, a playful exposition of the pressure placed on individuals to make the "right" choices, to conform to expectations. As such, the introduction could be read as a contribution to the formation of two narrative constructs: that of “normality” – or at least that which is considered “normal” by the prevailing ideology – and that of “subnormality”, the rest. In his uncompromising rejection of the former, Ewan McGregor's Renton commentary roots him deeply in the latter. We see this division alluded to on several occasions. In the nightclub, for example, Renton immediately notices how the "successful" separate from the "unsuccessful": the former embrace their newly found partners and the latter nod shyly. "Success", however, is more often linked to boredom and absurdity, the easy life, game shows and bingo; “Failure,” despite its inherent misery and difficulty, proves exhilarating: a knife on a razor's edge. The tension inherent in this opposition is offered, arguably, as a reason for the behavioral patterns described; "What people forget is the pure pleasure of doing it", as Renton confesses. We could describe the group of friends, united by failure, as classic antiheroes; as characters we sympathize with despite the horrors they commit. It is a reading marked by nihilism, and one cannot help but remember the Zarathustrian "Table of Values" exposed by Nietzsche....... half of the sheet......and present and, as such, forms the future. How free is the individual if we concede to behavioral determinism? And, if choices in public life can be predicted based on, for example, class, gender, education and origin, can they really qualify as free choices? The characters are perhaps shown as "not free", as they are forced to make a choice: "a job", a "career", a "big television"; to do otherwise is to choose death. The heroine represents this misnomer: she is the choice not made, the solidification of a philosophical abstraction. Significantly, the heroine never kills any of the characters, only the accompanying consequences. To summarize, then, Trainspotting examines the tension caused by segregation and demands for citizenship, and as such explains social problems as the denial of this tension. Denial is only shown to exacerbate problems.