2/24/08

Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills presents to the reader the harsh reality of the conditions and lives that the workers in an industrial-based economy have to deal with. The novel immediately describes the horrible conditions lived in by the workers when the narrator says that six families are crammed into two cellar rooms, and then it goes on to describe how Deb is hunchbacked from the labor. Her body starves for food while she really longs for love and some sort of spiritual connection. Hugh’s work at the furnaces of the mill causes him to lose his manliness and the other workers call him Molly Wolfe for his more girlish or feminized appearance. The sculpture of the woman Hugh Wolfe creates is one of someone who is longing for sustenance. The artist Hugh corrects a visitor to the mill who analyzes the work and says the woman longs for food and tells him that she actually is craving for something to motivate her to live. If only Hugh could recognize his talent and harness it, he could escape from the downtrodden life of an iron mill worker. Hugh ends up being sentenced to jail after Deb steals money from one of the visitors. This is after Hugh goes to a church service where the preacher’s language and message go over Hugh’s head. Here Davis is pointing out that the social problems of these types of workers may be cured by Christian salvation. Hugh, while in his cell, notices that the lowliest of society and even a dog has more freedom than him. He ends up dying in jail after committing suicide by slashing his wrist, but Deb ends up with a better life. She joins the community of the Quakers and is freed from the constraints of the life she led before. This ending is a somewhat hopeful outlook on the common worker’s situation. They may at some point in their life have the opportunity to escape the awful conditions in which they live. But it could also be viewed as a story that crushes the American Dream.