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
Shortly after the new year arrives, Kracha fractures his arm while piling up scrap at the steel mill. His injury earns him further pampering from his sympathetic boarding missus, as well as accident compensation from the company. He goes to Braddock during the christening of Anna’s second baby, and displays to Mike a newspaper that ran a picture of Zuska’s son, Joseph, who has become an ordained priest. “It’s my money that made him a priest, money [Zuska] stole from me!” Kracha moans. In the kitchen, Mary bakes a cake for Johnny’s eleventh birthday, and they celebrate while Kracha is there to enjoy it. Mary suggests he stay the night. The children argue as Johnny tries to blow out the candles on his cake.
Here, Bell uses Kracha’s injury and Johnny’s birthday as an opportunity to bring the family members together. And although a birthday party appears to be a celebratory event, there is a looming dark undercurrent to the gathering. Johnny’s extinguishing of the candles on his cake represents another year of young life, but it also foreshadows a life about to be snuffed out.
Themes
Mike and Mary discuss Frank Koval’s recent discharge from the hospital following an accident at the mill. The company has compensated him with nine months’ wages, and he is considering moving to Michigan with Alice and investing in a farm. Kracha remarks that Mary looks better after giving up the boarders, then Mike heads out to work while Kracha goes out drinking. He returns to Mary’s house at midnight. Shortly after entering, he hears a knock on the door. A man outside informs Kracha that Mike has been killed in an accident at the steel mill. He goes into Mary’s bedroom, wondering “why God had chosen him to do this dreadful thing to her.” He sighs, touches her shoulder, and tells that her husband is dead.
This passage highlights Bell’s subtle use of symbolism in the novel. The fact that the family celebrates Johnny’s birthday on the eve of his father’s death in the mill provides the key arc for the novel’s redemption narrative. Whereas the lack of a union and the power of the steel company destroyed Mike’s soul before the mill itself takes his body, Johnny will grow to redeem his father’s dreams by helping to organize the new union that finally provides a check on the steel company’s power. Mike’s death, though tragic, will not be in vain.
Themes
