[...] Wallace argues that "part of what we humans come to art for is an experience of suffering" so that we might "more easily conceive of others identifying with our own [suffering]." Second, he claims "a big part of real art fiction's job is to aggravate this sense of entrapment and loneliness and death in people, to move people to countenance it, since any possible human redemption requires us to first face what's dreadful, what we want to deny." Taken together, these observations suggest a dedication to empathy and receptiveness while also recognizing that pain is not just inexorable from them, but is a vital component of the discovery. [...]