Tomas Bell, Out of this Furnace

Market economy and democratic government are the two things that made and still make America attractive for numerous immigrants. From the years of the Westward expansion Americans learned to be involved in the politics surrounding their everyday lives. Ingenuity and hard work to achieve success are distinctly American values. However, as Thomas Bell shows in Out of this Furnace, the corporate chase of American dream in the industrial United States in the early twentieth century was often against fundamental principles of American democracy. Before the industrial boom, America’s pioneers were only concerned with claiming their own, without the social responsibility attached. It took a fair amount of civil unrest to transform the business and political system from a “no holds barred” cowboy-era style to policies more responsible and accountable to America’s citizens. Out of this Furnace shows how America hard-learned these new values by portraying the struggle for life of the three successive generations of an immigrant Slovak family at Pittsburgh still mills at the turn of the century.
Nineteenth century America witnessed inflow of European immigrants that came here coming to find a better life. These men had a determination for success in the New World, and many of them settled in the East of United States, having found a job in the developing industrial factories. Steel mills and railroads were especially attractive for them, because these new industrial enterprises did not require special skills, just a pair of hard-working hands would suffice. Since the new immigrants did not have an established position in the country, they were forced to take on any job opportunity that was coming their way. Workers at the steel mills workers were especially characteristic of the low quality of life that the labor force had during that time. In addition to the dangerous nature of the job itself, where many lives were sacrificed to the machines, the immigrants suffered the most and also worked the most hours for the least amount of money. Political freedom and one’s constitutional rights were unavailable to them because of the insufficient levels of education and also because the everyday struggle for survival was consuming all their waking hours. The immigrants, however, did not give up halfway into realization of their dream, and through all of these hardships, they continued a fight for a better living.
The capitalist ideal of democracy was to take as much fortune as possible in the absence of limitations. But, to accumulate the considerable fortunes, there must be someone who labors over the products that will be accumulated. The majority of the population, the laboring class, does not share these values, since because of the capitalist logic they are denied the basics of normal human existence. The majority’s vote did was not the decisive factor in the politics, at least on the city level. It was the elite minority that set the rules that everyone had to play by. Here Bell shows the inconsistency of democracy: the gap between the ideals of the two classes. While capitalists American dream was to propagate even more wealth, the workers’ class goal was an achievement of mere financial security.
In the book, the fictional lives of George Kracha, Mike Dobrejcak, and Dobie Dobrejcak represent the prevailing tendencies in the America’s working class at that time. However empathetic they are, Bell’s intention was to draw the reader in to analysis of the conditions of America’s labor force at that time.
Bell uses these characters to give an idea about the conditions of America’s working class and their fight to be treated equally and humanely. Bell juxtaposes the working unions to the owners of the “means of production”. Through their influence brought by profits, the top men were trying to warp the democratic political system in favor of their enterprises.
The story starts with the man, whose grandfather came to America in 1881 to take his share of the seemingly enormous opportunities for enrichment. This modern man is now trying to find his place in the world that he was put in by his predecessors. The story touches on all everyday aspects of human life, such as family, money, work, and showing how these elements are interdependent, the audience gets the bigger picture of life back then. The underlying motive of the later immigrants is the search not for American dream, but for security. The aspirations that their grandparents brought with them from Europe were radically transformed to fit the changing world of industrial production and corporate profits.
To the immigrants, the steel mills were like giant creatures from a medieval fairy tale that was domineering their lives. The workers were dwarfs as Dobie called them. The dwarfs are forced to work ninety-six hour weeks in the heat of the furnaces. The giants were there to quickly bring down the weak attempts to start a strike or whatever the workers felt they should do to change the balance. The immigrants, when fleeing to America from the giants in their home country, yet when thy came to the new land, they were faced with almost the same (if not worse) hardships and lack of justice.
Kracha and the others of the first generation came from a very different land, a land in which it was better to never question authority, or to get involved with a political system that one had no chances to be heard. The immigrants were often denied their basic constitutional rights because of the language barrier, lack of education, unfamiliarity with the country, and poverty. Democracy as a concept was something that they did not grew up with, and the abused this disadvantage by further depraving the immigrant workers of the democratic freedom.
Because the immigrants were not yet “the real Americans” the work conditions at the mill were even harder than that of their American counterparts. “Hunkies” was the collective derogatory name that their peers and supervisors called the European immigrants. Regardless of the work ethics and skills to do the job, the mill companies "[didn't] give good jobs to Hunkies" (185).
The workers’ comeback at the power holders was in the form of attempts to form the unions. The union’s legal actions, even though were supported by many, ended up in the collecting dust in the City Office. Needless to say that the workers’ supervisors and company owners did not like the idea of having conscious workforce, therefore they counter-reacted with the help of a long buck that gave them access to the lawmaking process of the city. Bell’s account shows that even American democracy at the turn of the nineteenth century did not guarantee rights and freedoms to its constituencies.
Kracha, as he says to Mike, is a good example of prevailing pessimistic view among immigrant workers: "They [the rulers] run the country to suit themselves, and don’t think they’re going to let you interfere every four years with your miserable vote. Get that into your head. Your vote means nothing. The company man always wins." (pp. 66-67). Kracha and a men like him had their aspirations and dreams, but the harsh reality of the work at the mill soon brought them down, changing their view on life.
Without the vision Kracha did not see any reason for action. Unlike Kracha, however, Mike, Dobie and some other workers were becoming more and more involved in changing their lives for better. Inevitably, as the generations of new immigrants assimilated, they progressively were catching on the customs of the country. The knowledge of political system, authority, and, more importantly, their rights, was increasing. The vision of the American dream was becoming closer and closer.
The vision was most vivid when Mike visited a private house, because "for the first time he perceived how graceful the business of eating and sleeping and entertaining one’s friends could be, and how one could be proud of one’s possessions, the way one lived. Standing in the parlor he said after a long pause, "This is the way a man should live." (p. 136). Having found the alternative reality in the new country, Mike now had a clear picture of what he would like to have, and that goal began to re-fuel his struggle.
Mike and Dobie epitomize the idea that individual actions in time broaden in to a collective force and have the power necessary to alter the surrounding harsh reality. They realized that the American dream is not guaranteed for everyone. It is only for those who work hard and never gave up; people who mould their lives to what they want them to be. As Steve says to Dobie, "If you make a living in this country you’re in politics whether you think so or not. People who never vote or say it’s a racket and things like that are simply getting the other guys politics, that’s all. The smart people go out and make their own." (p. 356).

Works Cited:

Bell, Thomas. Out of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America. Pittsburgh:University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976

 

Love

Poetry is and has been one of the central means to express the thoughts and overwhelming emotions of a person. Through this written or spoken instrument, men and women alike have developed intricate ways to tell of either his or her deepest feelings utilizing the various techniques of language. Whether it be through long metaphors or rhyming stanzas, the poet has created a piece of literature unlike that of fiction and drama; where stories and plays are established with a plot and a character, poetry is not. A poem does not rely on physical entities nor is its foundation built with stages and curtains. Poetry is the expression of one’s heart and mind. Time may have given poetry categories (i.e. Shakespearian, limerick, etc.) but the essence of what it is, has not changed. Poetry requires an exploration, much like a scientific method of breaking points down, for this is the only plausible format to reach a true interpretation.
Sharon Olds’ poem, “Sex Without Love”, is a prime example of one of the many faces a poem can wear. The subject of sex is in question here; can a person “make love” without love itself? The focal question posed at the beginning illustrates the philosophical level this poem contains. Throughout “Sex Without Love”, Sharon Olds vividly discusses her subject leaving it to the audience to finally come to a conclusion either because she cannot, or it was her intention to allow the public to make its own interpretation. Digressing, the subject is certain from the start: sex. And the purpose is not to distinguish whether sex without love is appropriate, but rather to identify how two people could come together in such a meaningful manner without any love for one another.
“Sex Without Love” uses strong imagery near the beginning, and once again in the end. To start, the speaker implicitly describes a sex scene with phrases such as: “gliding over each other”, “faces red as steak” and “wet as the children as birth”. The quick explanation for these images is to grab the audience’s attention (an indication of how modern the poem is; resorting to sexual incidents to gain modern-day society’s attention). More importantly, however, the images are here not for enjoyment, but rather to exhibit the reality of the action. And in the end of the poem, there is a reference to being like two runners knowing only what is important to themselves as indicated in lines eighteen through twenty-one: “They know they are alone with the road surface...just factors, like the partner in bed.”
Here, the speaker’s feelings are easily determined, especially with the phrase “just factors, like the partner in bed.” Though it is not definitive, stating that the people in bed together are just meager factors of life strongly indicates that there is distaste for sex without love. The images work well together to illustrate the speaker’s feelings. With the sex in the beginning, and then the running towards the end, it is as if the two are being compared as simply an exercise and a portion of “cardiovascular-health” as said in the end. The images provided are a key element to understanding the speaker’s intentions and go to prove the level of importance images have for poetry, though it is technically a work without any absolute visuals like a story book might have or a dramatic performance would show.
“Sex Without Love” is intriguing due to its nature. There are no limits to how it could have been written, yet, it still feels like any other poem. It has a firmly established subject and the speaker is passionate about what she is protesting. The metaphorical usage is key in proving how sex without love is nothing more than running; it is normal. The speaker, however, does not feel this way and has spoken her peace on the subject in an emotional manner. Attempting to make her point, she is taken aback with awe and stumbles three times with her words. The reality of the poem is powerful and could be used in real-life circumstances if the time were to come.
Galway Kinnell’s poem invites readers to ponder the procreative meaning of love-making by focusing on the mysterious bonds between a child and his parents and between the parents themselves in relation to their child. The poet describes how his son Fergus, ever a sound sleeper imperturbable even by his father’s raucous noises, is uncannily roused from sleep by the sounds of his parents’ love-making and comes running to “flop down” between them in the marital bed. The poem concludes by recounting the reaction of the parents/lovers to Fergus’s “return” into their embrace.
Fergus’s face may beam satisfaction, but his parents smile. They can sense how important their presence is to him; but he cannot know what he means to them. What does the poet mean by calling the sounds of love-making “mortal sounds,” and in what senses are they capable of “singing awake” the sleeping child? Is it only their son’s footsteps that the love-makers hear, or do they also hear footsteps of the “grim reaper,” as it were, “behind” them?
In “The Lover Not Taken” (1984) by Blanche Farley the author raises the question of loving two people at the same time. The very first line tells readers about the further content of the poem: “Committed to one, she wanted both”. So what kind of love is it when a person loves somebody and still thinks about another person? Farley even describes the object of desire of this girl: “Really turned her on. She liked his hair,
His smile.” There is a constant fight inside’s the girl’s heart – she is trying to decide who she wants more, and finally, decides for Jack.
The three poems described above all give a different meaning of love. The first poem, “Sex Without Love”, talks about love from the perspective of sex. The author decides that these two things can exist separately. The second poem by Galway Kinnell talks about sex as well, but from the perspective of how children perceive it. And the last poem, “The Lover Not Taken” examines the issue of loyalty and faithfulness. At the end, everything comes to its right circle, and the girl stays with the person she was in love with, as opposed the one who just attracted her. The three poems tell readers that there is no one, universal definition of love – it is different for everyone, but it definitely includes sex, and loyalty, and faithfulness and many more other things.

Bibliography:

“The Lover Not Taken” (1984), Blanche Farley
“Sex Without Love”, Sharon Olds

 

“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s “The Blues Eye” is not only one of her best books, but it is also one of the greatest books ever. The author’s use of Narrative Voice, Literary Artistry and Genre contributes and complements the oppositions and issues of the book very much. To understand the book in full, it is necessary to perform a complete analysis of it, which is what is work is aimed at.
The narrative voice of the book is not consistent throughout the book. At first, Claudia, a 9-year-old girl takes on a role of a narrator. She tells the story the way she perceives it and yet, this narration does not sound like a one of a child. Things, people and events are described in a mature way, which makes the reader regard Claudia as a reliable speaker. For example, when the girl describes the conversation of adults (Morrison, 16) she uses many comparisons and metaphors: “conversation is a gently wicked dance”, “words move in lofty spirals”, “punctuation with warm-pulsed laughter.” It actually seems that Morrison has spoken about many of her own experiences as a child (e.g. being rubbed with Vicks when she was sick, what she thought of adults) through Claudia, which made the descriptions not only authentic, but also understandable to an adult reader.
The narration suddenly switches to the third person narration. The reader does not even notice this switch because it seems so natural that one person cannot be at two different places at the same time. Claudia is only a limited omniscient narrator – she tells about things that she sees and knows. All the other events are described in an even more reliable way – either in a form of an interview (e.g. Pauline’s story) or just from an omniscient third person narrator.
One thing about “The Bluest Eye” that strikes the most from the very first lines is the depressive, pessimistic tone of the book. It does not seem right to hear about so much hatred and violence from a little girl. Most favorite children’s experiences such as getting candy and ice cream are not described with much delight in this book. They are rather associated with money, race or beauty issues (Morrison, 40-43).
The book would not probably have been as realistic to reader if its mood were joyful and optimistic. Toni Morrison primarily describes lives of black people in the post World War I period. Life was difficult for them at that time. There were many new opportunities given to the growing and expanding group of African Americans living in the North. Almost 500,00 African Americans moved to the northern states between 1910 and 1920. This was the beginning of a continuing migration northward. More than 1,500,000 blacks went north in the 1930’s and 2,500,00 in the 1940’s. Life in the North was very hard for African Americans. Race riots, limited housing resulting in slum housing, and restricted job opportunities were only a few of the many hardships that the African American people had to face at this time. Families often had to separate, social agencies were overcrowded with people that all needed help, crime rates increased and many other resulting problems ensued. (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia) This general situation in the country is very well reflected in the way the book is set, in the colors used for descriptions. Reading this novel is actually very similar to watching a black-and-white movie. It even becomes quite a shock for the reader to try to imagine the white girl dressed in pink when nobody else in the novel is described in terms of color.
Toni Morrison uses an interesting approach in structuring and organizing the novel. Instead of conventional chapters and sections, The Bluest Eye is broken up into seasons sections - Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer. At first, the reader does not realize the need for such chapter names, especially because nothing in each chapter points to the presence of that particular season (e.g. no mention of snow in Winter section, even though it is quite likely to have snow in Ohio). However, after reading the novel to the end, it becomes obvious that the author intended to make a parallel of the nature and human lives. It seems that Morrison is making a point of nature being constant, which, in turn, makes the human world constant as well. Just like one season goes after the other always in the same order, events described in the book have occurred in the past and will occur in the future.
There is even this point of fatality in nature’s laws and decisions: nothing can go beyond the already set paths. “I even think now that the land of the entire country was hostile to marigolds that year. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruits it will not bear and when the land kills of its own volition, we say that the victim had no right to live” (Morrison, 160). Only the nature retains the right to dictate which seeds it will bear to fruition and those that it will reject. Pecola is one of these “certain seeds” that never had a chance to grow and succeed because she lived in an environment that rejected her, one that would not and maybe could not nurture her.
“The Bluest Eye” becomes even more powerful once the reader figures out the meaning of the primer story in the beginning of the book. Morrison is probably trying to show that there are little girls and little boys who are not living in Dick and Jane environments with white picket fences and puppies. Some of them have non-caring mothers, some – fathers who rape them, some – are extremely unhappy and some have the fortune to get it all in their lives, all except the pretty life they learned about from their first colorful books. This kind of kids grow up to be adults who feel guilty for not being able to correspond to the standards set up by somebody else. They know that they will never be able to become Shirley Temples as children and movie stars as adults.
Besides the four chapters there also are subchapters, which all start with a condensed fragments of the Dick and Jane primer. For example, the section of the book where Cholly’s life and Pecola’s rape are described starts with the lines: “See father. His is big and strong. Father, will you play with Jane? Father is smiling. Smile, Father, smile.” (Morrison, 105) This contrast of a children’s story and reality is shocking, but it energizes the thinking engine of a reader even more. One starts thinking about why, “but since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how” (Morrison, 9) and read the novel on to see how it actually is without asking why – it is predetermined by nature anyway.
There is a good combination of different kinds of languages in the novel. Morrison combines journalistic language of “Pauline’s interview” and informal, very rich in dialect conversations of, for example, Claudia’s mother and her friends. (Morrison 14-15) The first person speaker, a 9-year-girl uses a formal, educated English in her narrations and conclusions, but a simple language of a child in her communication with others. Language changes from one scene to another depending on what characters are involved. This, again, creates a great sense of reality because people may use different language depending on the situation and the environment they are in.
To add more cultural meaning to the novel, Toni Morrison inserts numerous lines from the blues: “hate to see that evening sun go down, ‘cause then I would know my man has left this town” (Morrison, 24), “I got blues in my mealbarrel…” (Morrison, 44), etc. Also, there are little verses from the children’s books (e.g. The blue eyes poem, Morrison, 40), which reminds readers that the story is actually about a little girl. The insertions of other artistic texts in the novel make the plot more vivid and understanding of its context, especially the cultural one, deeper. For example, it is a fact that single mother families are not uncommon among the black community, so it sounds natural for the women to sing “my-man-leaves-me”-kind of song.
Social groups are represented in the novel in all their variety. Pauline’s employers represent the first group of whites. These people usually are very well off. They have big house, good clothes and other attributes of a rich life. Wives stay at home and men work all the time. Such families just have to have a servant, and she has to be black. This is probably the only role they think blacks can have in life. Most blacks can only dream of a life these people have.
The next group of whites is immigrants, represented by Mr. Yacobowski in the novel. They came to America in the pursuit of their dream and they work hard to realize it. They are not poor, but still are looked down by the WASPs. As any whites, immigrants, in the novel do no like blacks and blacks do not view them any differently from the rest of the whites.
The third group mentioned in the novel is the prostitutes. They are of all races (Miss Mary is white, Miss China is probably Chinese, and Miss Poland is also white). Prostitutes do not seem to make any racial distinctions neither among their clients nor among people they communicate with. They are opposed to the “good Christian wives” in the novel, but neither group wants to be like the other.
Blacks are represented the most in the novel, and yet, they are divided into different subgroups. There are “niggers” and “colored people” as Geraldine said. Claudia’s family and the Breedloves probably belong to the “niggers” group, since they are those who are poor and do not know good manners. Geraldine herself and Maureen Peel represent the “colored”. The first group despises the second, but the latter one never wants to be like the former. There are also many wider groups such as children and adults, working and non-working people, etc.
Morrison’s artistic style is very impressive not just because of the rich use of comparisons, beautiful language and blues songs. Constant switches of the forms of narration, tones, and language types keep the readers active and emphasize the issues raised in a novel even more. One of such issues is beauty. Brought up as a poor unwanted girl, Pecola Breedlove desires the acceptance and love of society. The image of “Shirley Temple beauty” surrounds her. In her mind, if she were to be beautiful, people would finally love and accept her. The idea that blue eyes are a necessity for beauty has been imprinted on Pecola her whole life. “If I looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they would say, ‘Why look at pretty eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty [blue] eyes’” (Morrison 40).
It is probably not so much about the beauty, as about what it means to people and what heavy load it puts on them. Pecola was left alone by her parents to face all the pressure that the society has put on her – pressure of being beautiful. She did not feel she was somebody, and that could only change for her when she got her blue eyes. However, as anybody Pecola was searching for her identity. All she wanted was to be loved. Her purpose in life was to be beautiful and as a result of that to be loved. Her family and community made it impossible for her to ever be sanely content. Pecola found herself only by going insane. Although Pecola is not accepted by society for reasons she does not understand, she puts her exclusion from society into terms she can comprehend. Society influences her identity. They mold her into what she becomes by not giving her the guidance and approval she needs.
In the same way, Cholly found himself separated from the community. After the realization of the perception the community has of him, he is demoralized and does an act of inhumanity. He could not live with the realization of the monster he had become and he disappeared. As a man he did not know who he was. In a sense he needed an act that would completely set him apart from the rest of the rational world for him to find himself. He sanely found himself as Pecola insanely found herself.
There is a very distinct issue of racism in the novel. It is not only the usual discrimination of blacks by whites, as in the Polish store, but the other way around as well. Blacks seem to discriminate themselves from whites as well. They make themselves servants like Pauline, who lets to dehumanize herself by letting a young white child to call her diminutive “Polly”. They are jealous of whites for having good lives, big houses, nice families. They are unhappy with what they have, but somehow they seem to be sure they are born and cursed with it. A white reader probably feels that the color of his skin can be an offense to another person, it alone may make him feel uncomfortable. This is not because having white skin is bad, it is rather because the black person does not love himself enough to feel that he is equal to the white – he is just a little different. It is sad that what whites did for a long period of slavery bared its fruit – blacks still feel somehow inferior, even after so many years since the abolition of slavery has taken place.
“The Bluest Eye” is literary filled with oppositions and contrasts. Along with such visible ones as blacks and whites, big houses with beautiful yards and small two-rooms apartments, well-dressed Maureen Peel and poor Pecola, there are some not so obvious ones. It is, for example, an opposition of treating yourself vs. treating others. We contrast with ourselves: we give things and people names to empower ourselves, but sometimes we disempower people who need our support. Furthermore, we destroy others to make ourselves okay. It is really necessary, though? Maybe it is not. Maybe it is not necessary that whole dialectic: the one or the other. Maybe there is room for both, maybe the prostitutes aren’t so much different than the wives. Maybe all the women in the novel have problems.
Reading the book, it seems that its genre is tragedy of a little girl in a big hostile world. However, Morrison, by using the actual setting, Lorain, Ohio, the real issues, racial superiority, complexes, and the realistic ending, most probably intended to make the novel’s genre social realism. If that is so, the reader benefits the most. It is often true those genres as tragedy, utopia, melodrama, etc. only distract the reader from the main theme intended by the author because they are overwhelmed by emotions. Readers understand the book and learn the lesson the best when the book is close to their lives, which is what Morrison has exactly done in “The Bluest Eye.”
“The Bluest Eye” was Toni Morrison’s first book. Despite of that it is a brave, realistic and, at the same time, touching book. It raises the issues of self-love, self-hatred, treating others and just being human. Pecola Breedlove is a victim of the reality of life. People need to find a scapegoat for themselves to feel superior. As Toni Morrison said, “we were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness, her pain made us glow with health” (Morrison, 159). This situation happens all the time. It is however, the choice of those who have read the book to be different than that, to work on self and try to be better.

Bibliography:

The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison, Washington Square Press
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, Microsoft, 2002