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
Anna’s husband, John, receives an offer to bartend in Donora, 20 miles north of Braddock, and the couple moves there at once. Anna is generally satisfied with her new surroundings, especially since Donora is not as old and dirty as Braddock is. Meanwhile, Mary is in dire financial straits and suggests to Kracha that she move to Homestead and that he should come to live with her. Still under the spell of his widow boarder’s pampering, Kracha angrily rejects Mary’s offer. By the spring however, Mary is in desperate need of financial help. She goes back to Homestead and demands that Kracha move in with her there, and he obliges.
As the only widow in her immediate family, Mary lacks the support that Anna receives from her husband, John. His new job takes them away from polluted Braddock to the much cleaner Donora. Without male support, Mary is forced to ask Kracha to move in with her as a boarder who can provide extra income. Mary’s situation demonstrates the limited options women have to support themselves when left without male partners.
Themes
Mary finds a house in Munhall Hollow. Mary is sad about the move only because “now she had no ties; one place was like another and nowhere would she be missed.” Kracha arrives at Mary’s new home a few days later. He is grumpy and looks disapprovingly at his new surroundings. Mary admits that the house is not pretty, but she only pays $10 a month in rent. Kracha claims that the railroad company provided nicer housing for free back when he arrived in America. They do not discuss Kracha’s boarding pay, but he decides on $20 a month, insisting that he paid as much in Homestead. Mary tells him that she cannot afford to keep him and the children for that amount. Kracha does not respond and instead goes out and gets drunk.
Kracha’s selfishness towards women, which he previously displayed in his relationships with Elena and Zuska, also characterizes his relationship with Mary. Just as he only considered his own needs by dismissing Elena’s health concerns, cheating on her with Zuska, and taking advantage of Zuska’s financial vulnerability, Kracha greets Mary’s financial desperation with a grumpiness born out of his dissatisfaction with her ramshackle house. Kracha’s selfishness towards women is ironic considering that, after he loses his butcher shop, he spends the rest of the novel under the care of women who house him and prepare his meals. Despite that fact, he never comes to appreciate the work that Mary and the other women perform for him.
Themes
Mary discusses Kracha’s refusal to pay more rent with Francka, explaining that when people confront her like that, she only wants to get away. Francka bluntly tells her that she must learn to stand up for herself: “You have no husband to fight for you now so you've got to learn to do it yourself.” Later, when Kracha returns home drunk, Mary insists that he pay her $30 a month for rent, to which he begrudgingly agrees. Surprised by his sudden change of heart, Mary finds Kracha to be an easy boarder. He is easy to cook for and goes to bed by nine o’clock at night. On Saturdays and paydays, he gets drunk in Homestead.
Francka’s pushing of Mary to stand up to her father is an attempt to instill in her a sense of independence. Francka’s advice has the desired effect, and Kracha’s willingness to agree to Mary’s terms comes as a surprise to her. Mary’s independence, however, is limited, and as a widow, she must still depend on Kracha’s boarding fee and, later, Johnny’s extra income.
Themes
The children generally enjoy the Hollow more than the dirty First Ward. Johnny and Pauline start attending school in Munhall, and the former gets a job delivering wallpaper on Saturdays and after school, for which he earns three dollars and fifty cents plus tips. When the school year ends, he gets a proper job—“a lunch bucket and work clothes job” in a glass factory that functions as “a sort of preparatory school for future employees of the steel mills and the Westinghouse.” Johnny likes working in the glass factory and is amazed at how glass can be molded into different shapes. The glass factory pays Johnny fifteen cents an hour, which Kracha grumbles is more than he got when he came to America.
Johnny’s interest in gaining a proper job always overshadows his interest in school. While his extra income helps the family immensely, his need to work at such a young age embodies the way work defines all aspects of life in the steel towns. Most of the children of immigrants look towards work, not education, as a means of attaining a better life.
Themes
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