Preview

Life In The Iron Mills Summary

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
In Rebecca Harding Davis’s “Life in the Iron Mills” there are two similar movements that play out in her short story. On one end we have this sense of realism which portrays the rural American (lower class) hardship of poverty and pollution. Davis paints this realist image by describing the harsh inhuman conditions immigrants faced when the “bully” aka the capitalist elite (the mill owners) employed them. And on the other end we see this sort of naturalist movement of social Darwinism throughout “Life in the Iron Mills.” Davis paints this naturalist image by describing the elites controlling the poverty-stricken workers with their naturalist fate in society. Both realism and naturalism share the same domain of the haves and have- nots.
Realism


You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    7. The film focuses heavily on a moral condemnation of capitalism. Do you agree with that approach? Many Marxists prefer what they call a scientific critique of capitalism? Which do you prefer? Which is more effective in touching the experiences of working-class people?…

    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Harvest Gypsies” by John Steinbeck and “The Migrant Mother” by Dorothea Lange, the feeling of desperation is felt by many migrant farmers’ causing them to feel hopeless and helpless. Many small farmers’ from the United States lost everything of their lives because of the large drought. The farmers’ packed everything they had left and traveled with their families’ to California to find work. “The drought in the middle west has driven the agricultural populations of Oklahoma, Nebraska and parts of Kansas and Texas westward. Their lands destroyed and they can never go back to them. Thousands of them are crossing the borders in ancient rattling automobiles, destitute and hungry and homeless, ready to accept any pay so that they…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Around the 1920s America was approaching the Great Depression era, coinciding with “social equality”. The Great Depression caused close to 50% of the population to become unemployed. The steady decline to this was devastating for Uless Carter’s family as Nicholas describes a simple action such as paying the land owner, “Industrious renters they might be, but the planter still kept the books, and if at the end of the year the family owed him money, there was nothing they could do about it.” A situation such as this should not arise if one were to approach it with a mind of “social equality”. The Carter family was treated poorly and not equal, after 3 years of trying to farm at the correct pace, they move to another plantation.…

    • 1443 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This is a novel of defeated hope and the harsh reality of the American Dream. George and Lennie are poor homeless migrant workers, doomed to a life of wandering and toil in which they are never able to reap the fruits of their labor. Their desires may not seem so unfamiliar to any other American: a place of their own, the opportunity to work for themselves and harvest what they sew with no one to take anything from them or give them orders. George and Lennie desperately cling to the notion that they are different from other workers who drift from ranch to ranch because, unlike the others, they have a future and each other. But characters like Crooks and Curley's wife serve as reminders that George and Lennie are no different from anyone who wants something of his or her own.…

    • 1863 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, Jurgis Rudkus descends into an abyss of poverty as he journeys through the industrialized urban jungle known as Packingtown. Allowing a family of Lithuanian immigrants to be his farmhands, Upton Sinclair plants the seeds of socialism into readers’ minds, hoping for a prosperous season. Jurgis’s journey through the depths of American Capitalism tarnish his soul, leaving him a mere shell of his former self. The slow annihilation of Jurgis’s family at the hands of a cruel and prejudiced economic social system demonstrates the effect of Capitalism on the working class as a whole. Sinclair flawlessly presents Socialism as a new religion, portraying Jurgis as a Christ figure set out in Packington to baptize…

    • 937 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The dust bowl was a tragic time in America for so many families and John Steinbeck does a great job at getting up-close and personal with one family to show these tragedies. In the novel, “The Grapes of Wrath”, John Steinbeck employed a variety of rhetorical devices, such as asyndeton, personification and simile, in order to persuade his readers to enact positive change from the turmoil of the Great Depression. Throughout the novel, Steinbeck tells the fictional narrative of Tom Joad and his family, while exploring social issues and the hardships of families who had to endure the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Steinbeck’s purpose was to challenge readers to look at the harsh realities around them for “the purpose of improvement”. The rhetorical strategies used in the “Grapes of Wrath” elicit a deeper understanding from its readers for the hardships these migrants faced and helped them to fight for a better way. (John Steinbeck, "Banquet Speech," Nobel Foundation, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-speech.html, Accessed 30 August 2013.)…

    • 1767 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Social Realism is a “[t]erm used to refer to the work of painters, printmakers, photographers and film makers who draw attention to the everyday conditions of the working classes and the poor, and who are critical of the social structures that maintain these conditions,” . Although it is most commonly associated with America during the early decades of the 20th century, Social Realism had been circling the Eastern Hemisphere long before then. The Industrial Revolution stirred up a concern for the common people in many artists, such as Sir Luke Fildes. In his work, “The Village Wedding,” Fildes depicts what can be assumed to be the end of a festive wedding. The bride, looking bashfully…

    • 332 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Jungle Paper, Social Justice

    • 4072 Words
    • 17 Pages

    The novel, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair depicts the lives of poor immigrants in the United States during the early 1900’s. Sinclair is extremely effective in this novel at identifying and expressing the perils and social concerns of immigrants during this era. The turmoil that immigrants faced was contingent on societal values during the era. There was a Social Darwinist sentiment of “survival of the fittest” and the poor members of society were almost disregarded and not treated as human beings. Sinclair gives a descriptive account as to the moral dilemmas that the stockyard industry enforced on the immigrants, who were forced to assimilate into a capitalist society. In the event that the social service programs, institutions, laws that are available today were present in the early 1900’s, immigrants would not have suffered the degree of destitution and helplessness as depicted in the Jungle.…

    • 4072 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Chartist movement came into being because of the economic circumstances of the working classes in industrial areas. This is reinforced by Asa Briggs who argues that Chartism was strongest in those older industrial areas where industry was dying or in newer areas where industry was expanding. Rural areas of the country had few or no supporters at all (Briggs 1959 Secondary Source 1). The speech was made at a period of economic stress and high social tension (O’Day et al., 2011, p117), and the first eight lines of Paragraph 4 of the extract concentrate on the economic theme. “Destitution in horrid form stalks through streets (Para 4 Line1), “its emaciated frames, its haggard features, its ragged clothing (Para 4 Line3) and “its skeleton-like, ghastly aspect” (Para4 Line 4). These references build a…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the novel „Of Mice and Men” John Steinbeck describes the American world of the working class, as the world of loneliness, unhapiness and brutality. Regarding to the economical situation during the 1930s, the low workers had to face up to the problem of the unemployment, which led to the personal frustration and the social assimilation. Steinbeck was from California, living in a small village and working on nearby ranches, he was spending his time with blue-collar workers since childhood. Because of that, he caterogically criticized the Capitalism System and did not trust mass movement politics. This 'mass movement politics' or in other words, the Communism System was also criticised by Marek Hłasko, a polish writer of the young generation…

    • 203 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The point in America’s economic history in which Mark Twain, famous American author, called The Gilded Age, had many myths around every corner. One of the more prominent myths in The Gilded Age was the idea that an average man could become successful through his own hard work and passion for what he did, and if they didn’t get this it was because of the idea of Social Darwinism, or that they didn’t work hard enough. Though there are a few rare cases of this occurring, such as Andrew Carnegie, this was very rare, practically impossible. One of the many obstacles that immigrants faced when they came into this country were poor living conditions. They’d live in a twelve by twelve tenants with everyone in their family, aunts, uncles, cousins,…

    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Men of Iron by Howard Pyle, the author recounts the adventures of a young knight in fifteenth century England. Not every young man has the opportunity to be a knight, so when seventeen-year old Myles Falworth is presented with the chance to do so, he eagerly accepts the challenge. Competitions follow, one after another, and finally, Sir Myles undertakes his greatest battle. In this fight to save his father’s life and honor, Myles relies on his own boldness, tempered by his religious character, and his principles of right and wrong.…

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    also gives way to understanding how objective reality is conveyed in this story on a social level. In…

    • 250 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Barbarity Of War

    • 1027 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The author compared the gypsies with every other person in Germany because they are just like…

    • 1027 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A few days ago my father was employed as a cotton weaver at the largest factory in Manchester. He was only taken in unless me, his nine year old son would also join the business. So today was my first day at the factory and I was only there for three hours as I was a new employee. As I walked through the entrance you could hear the loud clatters of metal and the constant banging of wood. The smell was foul and you could see a stream outside. I was taught the different machines and how to use them, the owner of the factory was Mr Oakmore, he was fairly large with a long black beard. He told me that I was going to work on the third floor in section 7; I was going to be cleaning the thread and wool that go underneath the spinning jenny where it isn’t used. He also told me that I had to get here by 5 o’clock exact otherwise there will be consequences and finish at 5’oclock in the evening. We also get an hour and a half lunch; Mr Oakmore said that they give the workers only the best meat and food that the cooks can make. It took me only a few seconds to get from one place to another under the machine. My father worked on the ninth floor working as a cloth maker, he would sow the thread into a cloth and then die it in different colours. I earn about 3 shillings a year whereas my father earns 12 shillings a month.…

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays