The unnamed narrator, who tells the novella’s central story from thirty years in the future, lives in the same house that Hugh, Deborah, and Hugh’s father lived in (although the narrator lives in the whole house, while the Wolfes only inhabited two of the cellar rooms). Living in the Wolfes’ old house means that the narrator possesses the statue of the hungry woman that Hugh carved, which is the catalyst for the narrator telling Hugh and Deborah’s story. The narrator positions him- or herself as an expert on factory workers, even though the narrator doesn’t seem to be one. As the house suggests, the narrator seems somewhat privileged, and his or her nuanced and articulate observations about industrial life position him or her to reach an equally privileged middle-class audience to warn them about the dangers of industrialization. The narrator holds firm moral positions about industrial cities being inhuman and believes that high- and low-class people all have the same desires and emotions, they just relate to different experiences. The narrator is nonjudgmental and wants the reader to be, as well.