The narrator describes the three important purposes of the daily newspaper in the Winter City, “although S. values only two.”

The first purpose is for warmth; to fill sleeves, pant-legs, boots and bedding. The second is to inform him of the world events, and the thirds purpose is so that S. uses the margins and blank spaces of the newspapers to write. The reader is never explicitly told which of these three purposes S. disvalues, but we can infer that it would be the second because keeping warm is vital, and S. values writing a lot.

Ilsa gives Jen a C on her Eliot paper, which makes Jen nervous because she may not graduate.