The Epilogue begins with final reflections on the high realist project concerning pain, the validity and limitations of its critique, the relevant historical context, and the lingering impact of its preferred aesthetic response to suffering—which can seem, ironically, like another form of anesthesia whenever it encourages numbing to and distance from the pain of others. It then offers summary comments on the less myopic, more inclusive and imaginative versions of reality envisioned by Twain, Chesnutt, and another contemporary author, W. E. B. Du Bois. After tracing patterns of sensitizing, insulating, and distancing behavior in our current reactions to seemingly intractable suffering that resonate with the high realist aesthetic, the book concludes by suggesting that the simultaneously politically galvanizing and aesthetically complex response to physical suffering that Part Two proves was available to the responsive imagination during the realist era remains available in our own day.