Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Out of This Furnace, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Immigration and American Identity
Industrialization and Destruction
The American Dream vs. Reality
Women’s Work
Capital vs. Labor
Summary
Analysis
It is December of the year 1900. Mike Dobrejcak is 25 years old. He has lived in America for eleven years, and though he has worked in the blast furnaces for ten of those years, “his wages, fourteen cents an hour, [have] stayed unchanged.” Half of the 2,000 men who work in the steel mills are Slovaks or other non-English-speaking immigrants, and none of them holds a skilled job. Unlike Kracha, who lives in America but never really assimilates into America, Mike learns to read and write English and studies American history, including the history of Braddock going back its namesake, the Revolutionary War general Edward Braddock.
In contrast to Kracha, Mike makes an earnest effort to shed aspects of his ethnic Slovak identity and earn his American identity through education. Even though he is mistreated at the steel mill, he hopes that becoming “American” will allow him to live out the American Dream: he wants to be recognized as more than a “hunky,” earn better wages, and eventually buy a house and fill it with all of the material trappings of American consumer society.
Themes
When the first blast furnaces went up, the town’s immigrant population boomed. English-speaking groups have always looked down on the Slovaks, their disdain “epitomized in the epithet ‘Hunky.’” The first generation of Slovaks, Kracha’s generation, were an “oppressed minority” in their home country and expected nothing from America besides a steady job. The younger generation of Slovaks, however, “were born outside the walls, and there was no going back”—they want to become American. In 1901, Mike’s brother, Joe Dobrejcak, leaves his wife behind and comes to Braddock, where he boards with Dorta and gets a job in the mill.
Here, Bell emphasizes the struggles Slovaks faced in the face of Anglo workers who refused to accept eastern Europeans as “real” Americans. The definition of “real” American identity, however, is vague and often contradictory. The Anglo steelworkers, after all, might have skilled jobs, but they still work in the mills alongside Slovaks. By laying claim to “real” American identity, Anglos create distinctions and privileges for themselves that allow them to believe they are above the “hunkies,” despite doing the same work.
Themes
