In "Life in the Iron Mills," Rebecca Harding Davis’s writing style mirrors the grim reality of industrial life for the laborers. The pacing of the story echoes the mechanical and monotonous nature of the work that people perform in the noisy, chaotic factory environment. This stylistic choice reinforces the sense of drudgery that characters like Hugh and Deborah feel. It also emphasizes the relentless passing of time, drawing attention to the hours of their lives that the workers are exchanging for money.
The story's diction is very period-specific, which creates a sense of local color for the reader. Characters speak with all sorts of regional accents and use idiomatic expressions that show the reader how people might have spoken during that time. Davis’s language is plain and matter-of-fact in dialogue but poetic in the narrator’s descriptions of events. This contrast between plainness and elegance reflects the difference between the laborers' aspirations to better themselves and their harsh day-to-day lives. The author's word choices are also usually uncomplicated, direct, and forthright. This helps ensure that the story's political messages can be easily communicated to readers.
Sentence structures within the narrative vary widely. For example, the narrator speaks fluently and uses a great deal of figurative language. The diction wealthy characters like Mitchell use is very different from the language of the workers, as are the structures of the phrases they say. This distinction represents the social divide between classes, as though they are almost speaking different languages. In addition, Davis also represents different accents and speech patterns to show that even in this small Southern town, diverse experiences existed among different immigrant communities.
Metaphors, similes, and sensory language come up very regularly, largely to illustrate the workers' longing for a life they have never known. These literary devices demonstrate to the reader that even if these characters have never known better conditions, they’re capable of imagining them. This use of metaphor also connects the abstract dream of a different life with the drudgery of everyday existence at the mill. Characters daydream of heaven while looking at intense cloudscapes created by pollution, and of hell when they see the fires of the mill’s furnaces.
