By book's end, the narrator develops compassion for Tracey where earlier there was anger, then pity. She begins to understand the struggles Tracey is going through, between being a single parent to navigating a child with learning disabilities. The narrator feels pity at first, with a plan to "rescue" Tracey, but then comes to understand that Tracey doesn't need rescuing. She needs understanding. Compassion is not a selfish act. Pity is, because while one feels bad for someone, they either do not help or help in ways that aren't helpful, like creating infrastructure in an area that doesn't have the means to support it, or adopting Tracey's children to rescue them. Both are self serving and do little to solve the undermining problem.
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