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
The year moves swiftly and Dobie is still busy with the union. There are rumblings from within the ranks calling for the union’s recognition, and “warnings by the union's executives […] that the time wasn't propitious only added to the rising discontent.” The company is disciplining union men and giving them fewer hours than non-union men. Gralji tells Walsh that the men are clamoring for recognition, and that they may go on strike to get it. “As long as we don't have recognition we can't do anything,” he states. Walsh dismisses a strike as ludicrous. “The steel corporation's been fighting the unions for forty years,” he warns, “and yet a lot of men around here join the union and a week later they want to know why the company doesn't recognize the union.” Dobie adds that if the men do not see action soon, they may drop their union membership in droves.
Walsh’s inaction in the face of hostility from the union members continues the struggle between the new generation of union men and the old. Dobie and Gralji recognize that time is not on the union’s side and that the steel company is counting on dragging out the conflict so the men lose faith in the union as a symbol of hope. Dobie and the other representatives see Walsh’s flat dismissal of a strike as evidence that he does not fully understand the stakes at hand.
Themes
Walsh downplays this threat and urges the other men to let Pittsburgh run the union as it always has. Later, as he walks through the street with Burke and Gralji, Dobie complains about Walsh’s stubbornness. Burke tells him that Pittsburgh has even more incompetent organizers, and that the union truly has an uphill battle to fight. They stop at a jewelry store and Dobie buys a plate as a gift for Agnes’s wedding. The men talk of money, work, struggling to get ahead, and having children. “Sometimes I wonder if it ain't playing a pretty dirty trick on a kid to bring him into the world right now. The way things are,” Dobie says.
The inaction and seeming incompetence from the highest levels of the union leadership in Pittsburgh create a crisis of faith for Dobie and his fellow union representatives. Much as Mike did in the face of intense adversity, Dobie contemplates whether life has any meaning at all, given the endless struggles that it entails. Yet Dobie soldiers on and even purchases a wedding gift for Agnes in the midst of his despair. Unlike Mike, Dobie recognizes that he has a fighting chance, however remote, of achieving his version of the American Dream, and he aims to keep fighting.
Themes
Organizing efforts experience another setback when Tighe, the “ancient” president of the Amalgamated Association (AA) expels striking workers from the Weirton lodges. Dobie bristles over the incident, but Walsh insists that Pittsburgh knows what it is doing. Dobie angrily warns Walsh that the Weirton incident sets a bad precedent and accuses him of undercutting the union’s chances. Many workers are angry at the discrimination they face from the steel company and are tired of paying dues to a union that they perceive as doing nothing for them. “There's men being spied on and passed over for turns and laid off and transferred from one lousy job to another, just because they had the guts to join the union,” Dobie says, “how long do you think they're going to stand for that?” Walsh remains stubbornly in favor of waiting on Pittsburgh, and Dobie and Gralji angrily stomp out of his office.
Bell’s description of the AA president as “ancient” further underscores that the struggle to free the steel mills is not just between capital and labor, but also between older and younger generations of union men. Bell highlights a tragic irony by suggesting that being more concerned about maintaining old hierarchies causes the union leaders to act just like the steel bosses they are supposed to be fighting. Like the steel bosses, the old union leaders will not tolerate dissent, they discourage collective action from below, and they punish those they deem out of line. Bell’s message here is that hierarchies foster corruption and authoritarian tendencies in any institution.
Themes
