Hackworth's Morning Ruminations Summary

Hackworth wakes up at 5 am, while his daughter Fiona and his wife Gwen continue to sleep. He reads through his personalized newspaper and scans the excerpts from the Times concerning him and his trade. While getting dressed, he accidentally awakens his wife. He tells her that he will be coming late from work, but that he will bring a special surprise to their daughter to compensate. Gwen kisses him good day. As Hackworth leaves, he realizes that his four-year-old daughter is now in on the secret and she is now expecting the surprise. The engineer concludes that it is now too late to back out of his project.

Hackworth's Morning Ruminations Analysis

This chapter depicts Hackworth as a man about to commit a crime. Obviously, he does not intend to alert his family and even less to change his...