Summary

Returning to the present, we find Nate staring at his computer screen with a long, dense message from Hannah wherein she continues the conversation started at Elisa’s dinner party. She writes in the vein of Nate’s essay topic, that of indifference to suffering. She ends on the friendly note that she had much fun with him and that it had been nice talking to him. His reaction to this apparent connection? Hesitance. He does not quite understand this hesitation on his part, but is not quite ready to write his “commodification-of conscience essay” (36) either. So he replies, and on goes their rumination on invisible exploitation.

Their emails prove to be intelligent, Hannah displaying nuanced insights. She questions him on his assumption that moderns have normalized indifference to suffering. Child labor was tolerated back in Dickens's time in a way it is not...