Out of This Furnace: Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

After he votes in the election, Mike spends the evening drinking with Steve Bodnar in Wold’s saloon, and the two men eventually stumble out drunk. They stagger through the First Ward as Mike becomes progressively angrier over the election and his inability to make a comfortable life for his family. He vomits several times, so the men settle down on a doorstep. Steve admonishes Mike for his political rebelliousness and talk of trying to revive the union. In response, Mike launches into a hopeless lament. He criticizes the atmosphere of fear that the company has created among its workers, paralyzing them into silence by threatening their jobs. He worries that he will soon be too old and too worn out to work, and he fears he will never be able to make something more of himself.

Mike expresses pride in his work and the steel he helps to create, but criticizes the steel bosses who view steelworkers as less than worthless. “More than coke and ore is going into those furnaces of theirs,” he states, pointing out how many men have given their lives to make steel for the company. Finally, Mike exclaims that chance runs the world, denies the existence of God, and resigns himself to his degraded lot in life. “Our work and our dreams,” he states, “none of it matters.” Although Mike has long felt that “no human being need go without his portion of comfort and beauty and quietness,” his experience has taught him that the powerful people in the world think otherwise. Finally, a woman leans out of her window and urges the two men to go home.