Epilogue Summary and Analysis

The Epilogue of Hard Times involves two interviews, one with a younger interviewee and one with an older one. Reed is a recent high school graduate who intends to raft down the Mississippi like Huck Finn with his buddy Chester. They tell Reed's father, who is visibly shaken by such a plan. Reed's father suggests they go to Europe instead and offers to pay for the trip. Reed is confused as his father expounds on the Depression, explaining he had such dreams at Reed's age that he could never realize. Reed is dumbfounded by the emotion the conversation elicits in his father; there is something about the Depression he will never understand.

Virginia Durr is a former "southern snob" (528). She recalls how the Depression cured her of her naivete. She acknowledges that many who survived it have become vehement consumerists as...