Out of This Furnace

Out of This Furnace

by

Thomas Bell

Mike is an immigrant from Joe Dubik’s native village in Slovakia. He eventually marries Kracha’s daughter, Mary, and is the father of Dobie, Pauline, Mikie, and Agnes. Mike is the focus of the second part of the novel. He arrives in Braddock shortly after Kracha, where he boards with Joe and Dorta and takes a job in the steel mill. Despite sharing a background with Kracha as a poor Slovak villager, the two men have very different personalities. Mike is younger and can read and write Slovak. He is also as curious and hopeful about American culture as Kracha is reserved and pessimistic. Unlike Kracha, Mike wants to become an American. He spends his down time learning to speak, read, and write English; studying American history; and dreaming about gaining American citizenship. Mike is also intellectually active in American politics and supports pro-labor politicians like William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Debbs, a position that pits him against the pro-business Republican Party that dominates local politics in Braddock. Mike’s enthusiasm for politics worries Kracha, who warns him that politicians, just like all ruling men, care nothing for the laboring classes and should not be trusted. Alongside his political interests, Mike yearns for the material trappings of Americanness. He weds Mary and hopes to live out the middle-class American dream by earning a good paycheck, buying and furnishing a nice house, and having children. Like Kracha, however, Mike is a tragic character who represents the failure of the American Dream. The impotence of steel workers to improve their lot in the face of the unshakable power of the steel bosses and the Republican Party leads him to despair, and he eventually dies in a mill accident, a victim of the latter groups’ greed.

Mike Dobrejcak Quotes in Out of This Furnace

The Out of This Furnace quotes below are all either spoken by Mike Dobrejcak or refer to Mike Dobrejcak. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Immigration and American Identity Theme Icon
).
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

That hostility, that contempt, epitomized in the epithet “Hunky,” was the most profound and lasting influence on their personal lives the Slovaks of the steel towns encountered in America.

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 123
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 5 Quotes

I feel restless. I want things I can't have—a house with a front porch and a garden instead of this dirty alley—a good job—more money in my pocket— more time for myself, time to live.

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak (speaker), Mary Kracha
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 9 Quotes

They ceased to be men of skill and knowledge, ironmakers, and were degraded to the status of employees who did what they were told for a wage, whose feelings didn't matter, not even their feelings for the tools, the machines, they worked with, or for the work they did.

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 12 Quotes

Flinger of pebbles against a fortress, his impunity was the measure of his impotence.

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak, Mary Kracha, Joe Perovsky, Eugene V. Debs
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 13 Quotes

Once I used to ask myself, Is this what the good God put me on earth for, to work my life away in Carnegie's blast furnaces, to live and die in Braddock's alleys?

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak (speaker), Joe Wold, Andrew Carnegie, Steve Bodnar
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 1 Quotes

A widow is outside everything. Even work is given to her more out of charity than because people want something done.

Related Characters: Mary Kracha (speaker), Mike Dobrejcak, Dorta Dubik, Joe Dobrejcak
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 214
Explanation and Analysis:

It takes a long time for the dead to die.

Related Characters: Mary Kracha (speaker), Mike Dobrejcak, Dorta Dubik, Joe Dobrejcak
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 217
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 4 Quotes

She felt, in those closing days, as though all the evidence that she had lived, all that had made her a person, an individual, was being stripped from her bit by bit.

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak, Mary Kracha
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 239
Explanation and Analysis:
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Mike Dobrejcak Quotes in Out of This Furnace

The Out of This Furnace quotes below are all either spoken by Mike Dobrejcak or refer to Mike Dobrejcak. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Immigration and American Identity Theme Icon
).
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

That hostility, that contempt, epitomized in the epithet “Hunky,” was the most profound and lasting influence on their personal lives the Slovaks of the steel towns encountered in America.

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 123
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 5 Quotes

I feel restless. I want things I can't have—a house with a front porch and a garden instead of this dirty alley—a good job—more money in my pocket— more time for myself, time to live.

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak (speaker), Mary Kracha
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 9 Quotes

They ceased to be men of skill and knowledge, ironmakers, and were degraded to the status of employees who did what they were told for a wage, whose feelings didn't matter, not even their feelings for the tools, the machines, they worked with, or for the work they did.

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 12 Quotes

Flinger of pebbles against a fortress, his impunity was the measure of his impotence.

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak, Mary Kracha, Joe Perovsky, Eugene V. Debs
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 13 Quotes

Once I used to ask myself, Is this what the good God put me on earth for, to work my life away in Carnegie's blast furnaces, to live and die in Braddock's alleys?

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak (speaker), Joe Wold, Andrew Carnegie, Steve Bodnar
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 1 Quotes

A widow is outside everything. Even work is given to her more out of charity than because people want something done.

Related Characters: Mary Kracha (speaker), Mike Dobrejcak, Dorta Dubik, Joe Dobrejcak
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 214
Explanation and Analysis:

It takes a long time for the dead to die.

Related Characters: Mary Kracha (speaker), Mike Dobrejcak, Dorta Dubik, Joe Dobrejcak
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 217
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 4 Quotes

She felt, in those closing days, as though all the evidence that she had lived, all that had made her a person, an individual, was being stripped from her bit by bit.

Related Characters: Mike Dobrejcak, Mary Kracha
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 239
Explanation and Analysis: