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Part 2, Chapter 2
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 following Thursday, Mike and Mary meet up again and begin a formal courtship. They spend weeks of their time off together. They take many walks through the First Ward, much to Anna Kovac’s dismay. Mike tells Mary that he and Anna were never a couple. Borka marries one of Francka’s boarders and becomes pregnant, while Anna continues to live with Francka. Mary introduces Mike to the Dexter family and soon he is allowed to knock on their door to see her.
Mary’s job working for the Dexters embodies how Slovaks can experience wealth and privilege only vicariously, by working for the wealthy. Anglo families like the Dexters accept Mary into their home, but only as a servant. She can work for the Dexters and share some of their privileges, but she cannot become their true social and economic equal.
Themes
Mike meets Lawrence Allan “Lad” Dexter, Mary’s charge, and the inside of the Dexter home overwhelms Mike. It is not only the first private dwelling he has ever visited, but also it is the first house he has ever been in that has a telephone, a bathroom, steam heat, and a “magnificent icebox.” Mike expresses his desire to own such a home someday. “We're not greenhorns just off the boat,” he tells Mary. “I know English pretty good. I'm still young […] one of these days I'm going to get a good job and then-well, we shall see.” In the spring of 1902, Mike and Mary get married at Dorta’s house. In the background, the steel company is building two new blast furnaces.
The material luxuries inside the Dexters’ home are a stark contrast to the crude living quarters Slovaks have in the First Ward. To Mike, the Dexters’ wealth embodies the American Dream, and he initially believes that he and Mary can have what the Dexters have if he just works hard enough. The company’s addition of new blast furnaces appears to offer the chance at more work, but they also loom ominously over the marriage, hinting at the eventual source of Mike’s demise.
Themes
