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
In May, Mike and Mary move into a two-room dwelling near a narrow alley. During the summer, work in the steel mills slows down, and the slowdown continues into the fall. In November, the company announces a wage cut just as Mary gives birth to their second child, Pauline Dobrejcak. During the November presidential election, Mike also casts his first vote, for the Republican Theodore Roosevelt.
The promise of work in the new furnaces also dampens just as Mike and Mary welcome their second child and need the wages to support a growing family. The slowdown at the mills draws Mike to the campaign of Theodore Roosevelt, who campaigns as a “trustbuster” who wants to break up the power of large industries like steel and the railroads.
Themes
The winter is hard but in the spring, the steel company restores full-time hours and rescinds the wage cut. Mike, however, has accrued several debts. He worries about his financial future; specifically that he has spent years working with no real improvement for his family. “I'll be thirty years old in a few months—and I have no more money in the bank than I had ten years ago,” he tells Mary. He complains of wanting the material things that he cannot afford: a house with a porch and a garden, a better wage, and more leisure time.
Even as the mills restore full hours and lift wages, Mike recognizes that the industry’s constant slowdowns have put the American Dream increasingly out of reach for him. The only thing Mike has to show for his years of hard work is more hard work. The increase in wages that would allow him to buy and furnish a nice house remains as out of reach as when he came to America as a greenhorn.
Themes
Anna is now working for the Dexters, and Alice elopes in Cleveland with her new husband, Frank Koval. Mary suggests taking in boarders to help cover some of the expenses, but Mike is against the idea. “It’s all very well to say the extra work won’t kill you,” he says, but when a couple takes in boarders, he continues, “the woman becomes nothing but a drudge and the husband finds himself little more than one of his wife’s boarders.” Despite Mike’s protest, they are forced to take in boarders to augment his salary, and by the end of the summer, they are keeping six boarders in the home, whom Mike hand-picks.
Mary’s taking in of boarders to help alleviate the increased financial pressure demonstrates how women’s work is essential for the survival of families living in the steel towns. She is as much of a full-time laborer as Mike is, if not more so. Mike understands the amount of work that comes with keeping boarders, which makes his stagnant wages all the more difficult to accept. It also shows that unlike Kracha, he appreciates how valuable women’s work can be.
Themes
