Out of This Furnace

Thomas Bell should be commended in the ability to entice readers in the roller coaster ride of a Hungarian families struggle to find success in The United States. Out of This Furnace is a narrative of a Hungarian family over a three generation span. The book goes into great depth explaining the struggles of the family’s fortune and the evolution of their values. Bell does a terrific job incorporating historical event into the plot of the novel, giving readers a visual conception of the time period. This book captivated the audience giving them an appreciation for the struggles immigrant families and all working class families during the second industrial revolution. To illustrate the progression of time, Bell writes the novel as a third person narrative that changes main character on four different occasions. All main characters are part of the same family, giving interpretations of the struggles they face over three different generations. The transition of main characters was always a result of a death. Whether that be in part one when the main character, George Kracha‘s wife dies after a long spin of illness, which can be gathered was a result of heart ache. Or when the actual main character dies like Mike Dobrejcak in a work related accident at the mill, and Mary Dobrejcak-Kracha after being hospitalized from consumption and later dyeing from the flu. Bell portrays a quite grim depiction of the fatality rate during the second industrial revolution. There is an emphasis on the struggles the working class had to go through just in order to stay alive. The primary focus of the novel was to illuminate the evolution of struggles each generation was faced with as an immigrant and as a member of the working class. The main objective for George Kracha was to be more successful in America than what he would have achieved in Hungry. George was willing to reach success at any cost, with little to no consideration of his family. George works so hard for so long