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 the spring, the river, normally “a sluggish, unnoticed stream, one-third water, one-third mud and one-third human and industrial sewage,” floods the First Ward, leaving behind a foul-smelling muck. As the ward residents clean up after the flood, Kracha comes to visit Mike and Mary. He and Mike discuss the railroad building an extension on Halket Avenue, the same property that Kracha once owned. He curses out Perovsky, much to Mike’s amusement. Kracha pours himself a drink while commenting that Mike should have spent his money on something other than a fancy desk. Kracha continues to curse Perovsky, who is now a council member, and Steve Bodnar comes over to share a drink as well. The men discuss the recent slowdown at the steel mills and hope that it is only normal “summer slack.”
In this passage, Bell comments on the pollution that fouls the river running through Braddock. The horrendous environmental costs from the mills, which he documents throughout the novel, are part of industrialization’s destructive consequences. Meanwhile, Kracha’s endless resentment towards Perovsky stems not just from his investment going sour, but also from the way that the failure of the land investment (in addition to his butcher shops’ closure) highlights Kracha’s utter failure to succeed in the game of American business. This failure confirms his underlying suspicion that he can never be anything more than a mill-laboring ‘Hunky.”
Themes
