An actress who has the gift of swaying the emotions of an audience, of compelling tribute of tears, or of moving the public to joyous merriment, cannot always be satisfied to set aside her whole career, in the work that she loves, simply because she is married.
We see everything from the narrator's point of view, so exposition about the world is limited to what impinges directly on him and the story he's telling. Considering how old the world is, we learn very little about its history, which I think is a good thing.