Out of This Furnace

Out of This Furnace

by

Thomas Bell

Steel Mills Symbol Analysis

Steel Mills Symbol Icon

The formidable presence of the steel mill dominates every facet of life in Braddock and other industrial towns in western Pennsylvania. In Bell’s novel, the steel mill symbolizes America itself, both its good and bad aspects. With its smokestacks literally towering over Braddock, its blast furnace casting a continuous, fiery glow, and its wages providing the livelihood for thousands of immigrant workers and their families, the Edgar Thomson Steel Works stands as a testament to the hope that American industry gave to Slovaks who came to America. Bell writes that the steel company regularly sent men like Joe Wold back to Slovakia to encourage immigration to Braddock. The promise of steady employment and the freedom to live out the American Dream fills the First Ward with Slovaks like Kracha and Mike Dobrejcak, and though the work is dangerous and the pay is low, many do experience a better life in the mill’s shadows. Especially during periods when the furnace is in high operation, the streets, churches, saloons, and shops of Braddock are alive with people flush with paychecks. Here, they experience joy and community. In this way, the steel mills symbolize the prosperity and hope that American industry brings, but they also symbolize the misery and suffering that are byproducts of life under industrial capitalism. Work in the mill is plentiful, but it is also hard, hot, dirty, and incredibly dangerous. Death and injury are common occurrences for steelworkers, and the loss of men to the mills leave a trail of grief and financial misery within their families and communities. As Bell writes, the mills consumed “thousands of lives […] as surely as they had consumed their tons of coke and ore.” As symbols of America, the steel mills embody America’s hope and despair, creating opportunity and wrenching it away in equal measure.

Steel Mills Quotes in Out of This Furnace

The Out of This Furnace quotes below all refer to the symbol of Steel Mills. 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 1, Chapter 7 Quotes

I work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, until there are times when I couldn't tell you my own name. And every other Sunday the long turn, twenty-four hours straight in the mill. Jezis!, what a life!

Related Characters: Joe Dubik (speaker), Djuro “George” Kracha, Joe Dubik, Andrej Sedlar
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 9 Quotes

These were the same people who snorted disrespectfully when they were reminded that in books and speeches Carnegie had uttered some impressive sounds about democracy and workers' rights.

Related Characters: Djuro “George” Kracha, Joe Dubik, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick
Related Symbols: Steel Mills, Unions
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 10 Quotes

Hope sustained him, as it sustained them all; hope and the human tendency to feel that, dreadful though one's circumstances might be at the moment, there were depths of misfortune still unplumbed.

Related Characters: Djuro “George” Kracha
Related Symbols: Steel Mills
Page Number: 47-48
Explanation and Analysis:
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:
Part 3, Chapter 5 Quotes

He was a child of the steel towns long before he realized it himself.

Related Characters: Mary Kracha (speaker), John “Johnny” Dobrejcak / Dobie (speaker), Frank Koval
Related Symbols: Steel Mills, Unions
Page Number: 240
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 5 Quotes

There were few who didn't find something brave and hopeful in its mere presence, the soiled curtains across the windows of what had been a vacant store as heart-lifting as a flag in the wind.

Related Characters: John “Johnny” Dobrejcak / Dobie (speaker), Julie Dobrejcak
Related Symbols: Steel Mills, Unions
Page Number: 292
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 9 Quotes

The very things the Irish used to say about the Hunkies the Hunkies now say about the niggers. And for no better reason.

Related Characters: John “Johnny” Dobrejcak / Dobie (speaker), Djuro “George” Kracha, Dorta Dubik
Related Symbols: Steel Mills, Unions
Page Number: 330
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 14 Quotes

You know, you really ought to be allowed to pick your own place to be born in. Considering how it gets into you.

Related Characters: Mikie Dobrejcak (speaker), John “Johnny” Dobrejcak / Dobie
Related Symbols: Steel Mills, Unions
Page Number: 373
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 16 Quotes

That was where a hearing of this kind should have been held, in the mill yard or in one of the First Ward's noisome alleys, where words and names were actual things and living people, beyond any lawyer's dismissal—smoke and machinery and blast furnaces, crumbling hovels and underfed children, and lives without beauty or peace.

Related Characters: John “Johnny” Dobrejcak / Dobie (speaker)
Related Symbols: Steel Mills, Unions
Page Number: 394
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4, Chapter 18 Quotes

All over America men had been permitted, as a matter of business, as a matter of dollars and cents, to destroy what neither money nor men could ever restore or replace.

Related Characters: John “Johnny” Dobrejcak / Dobie (speaker)
Related Symbols: Steel Mills, Unions
Page Number: 408
Explanation and Analysis:
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Steel Mills Symbol Timeline in Out of This Furnace

The timeline below shows where the symbol Steel Mills appears in Out of This Furnace. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 2, Mike Dobrejcak: Chapter 14
Industrialization and Destruction Theme Icon
The American Dream vs. Reality Theme Icon
...after the new year arrives, Kracha fractures his arm while piling up scrap at the steel mill . His injury earns him further pampering from his sympathetic boarding missus, as well as... (full context)
Industrialization and Destruction Theme Icon
The American Dream vs. Reality Theme Icon
Capital vs. Labor Theme Icon
...A man outside informs Kracha that Mike has been killed in an accident at the steel mill . He goes into Mary’s bedroom, wondering “why God had chosen him to do this... (full context)