Part 1 of “The Reader” explores the earlier concepts of Michaels’ moral dilemmas when he starts thinking that he is being disloyal to Hannah. Michael believes that by not exposing anything about him & Hannah to his friends, he disowns her and doesn’t acknowledge her. Michael argues with himself that he is being considerate or just being discrete but realizes that these are just excuses he is making up for himself and acknowledges what he’s doing, “But you, who is doing the disowning, you know what you 're doing.” Even though he recognizes what he is doing is wrong he continues to do so for his own sake. He pretended that he was waiting for a right time, but missed the opportunity to tell his friends about his lover, “At first I told myself