The Iron Mill By Rebecca Harding Davis - 997 Words

In Life in the Iron Mills, Rebecca Harding Davis tells the story of Hugh Wolfe, a lower-class man whose love of beauty and desire to move up in the world ultimately leads to his mental decline and demise. Wolfe lives in a town of smothering grey smog and works in an iron mill reminiscent of Hell, places that induce hopelessness and despair by appearance. In contrast to his surroundings, Wolfe possesses a fierce love of beauty and a talent of sculpting with korl, both of which are frequently associated with higher socioeconomic classes. Initially, it appears that Davis means to reinforce the common associations of beauty with the upper class and unseemliness with the lower class. In the story, beauty can be associated with the upper class characters through their polished appearances and admiration of art, inciting a positive association in response to beautiful imagery; unseemliness, on the other hand, can be associated with the lower class and negative feelings because the mill is reminiscent of hell and the characters are generally unattractive. However, when looked at with a closer lens, it appears the story cannot be taken at face value and the typical feelings surrounding beauty and ugliness do not apply in the story. Appearances can be deceiving: within Life in the Iron Mills, ugliness represents opportunity whereas the beauty serves as a distraction. By juxtaposing unsightly and attractive, Davis shows that mobility is possible only through unattractive, hard workShow MoreRelatedThe Iron Mills By Rebecca Harding Davis Essay1831 Words   |  8 PagesThroughout Cultural Perspectives, many influential texts have been read, analyzed, and discussed. One text, Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis, integrates the thoughts of quite a few authors that have been discussed this semester. Through employing a Marxist view of history—there are always the â€Å"haves† and the â€Å"have-nots†Ã¢â‚¬â€one can see that Life in the Iron Mills exemplifies the struggles that face many â€Å"have-not† citizens throughout history. One can then see the clear connections toRead MoreLife in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis797 Words   |  3 PagesSimilar to other critics, â€Å"Life in the Iron Mills† by Rebecca Harding Davis, is a sentimental story with an ending that changes the tone of the story. As suggested by the majority of this text, there was not to be a favorable ending for the characters as the narrator portrays them so pessimistically; the very first passage begins â€Å"Is this the end? O Life, as futile, then, as frail! What hope of answer is redress?† (p.51). The text might have had a more completed ending with the protagonist, HughRead MoreThe Industrial Revolution Of The Iron Mill By Rebecca Harding Davis1070 Words   |  5 PagesThe industrial revolution was a time of invention, progress and opportunity. However, there was also a darker side to it all. Rebecca Harding Dav is, author of Life in the Iron Mills, tells the story of ironworker Hugh Wolfe from a first-person narrator’s point of view. This unnamed narrator of an unspecified gender is part of the more privileged class of society. This person resides in the house that the two protagonists of the story, Hugh and Debora Wolfe, used to live in. The higher-ups of thisRead MoreThis essay is an analysis of the story the Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis.1820 Words   |  8 PagesIn Life in the Iron Mills Rebecca Harding Davis reveals a growing industrial America in the nineteenth century, where an unbelievable level of poverty and limited opportunities of achieving success can cause individuals to take extreme risks to attain a descent lifestyle. Through the novella, Davis illustrates the distinct differences between upper and lower class lifestyles. Immigrant workers, Debora (lovingly called Deb) and Hugh, take the reader to a time when people were used as productionRead More Essay On Life In The Iron Mills1314 Words   |  6 PagesThe modern implications of class can be seen as a general word for groups or group distribution that has become more common. Rebecca Harding Davis’s short story Life in the Iron Mills, together with Raymond Williams’s entry Class delineates the oppressed lower class in a vivid and moving way, exemplifying the impact of social divisions on oppressed working labourers. Davis â€Å"embodies a grim, detailed portrayal of laboring life† (Pistelli 1) with an articulate correlation of Williams’s entry ClassRead MoreLiterary Realism Of The Iron Mills And The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman1388 Words   |  6 Pagesthe reader, social injustice may be dealt with. Two examples that use form to reach the end goal of compassion are Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills uses an embedded narrative to tell the story of Deb and Hugh, and the daily struggles of Deb’s life. Life in the Iron Mills was written in 1861, two years prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. The goal of this story is to feel compassionRead MoreSusan Glaspell s A Jury Of Her Peers And Flannery O Connor s Good Country People Essay1696 Words   |  7 Pagesoppression of women, there is much that can be learned by looking back at problematic situations portrayed by women writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Out of all of the texts written by women only three will be discussed; Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron-Mills, Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers and Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country People, in which specific symbols are used as representations of the ways in which women were oppressed and how important it is to study these texts todayRead MoreThe Reception And Influence Of Rebe cca Harding Davis2118 Words   |  9 Pagesthe need to speak out for others, especially the lower classes. However, Rebecca Harding Davis observed the suffering of all humanity and decided to give everyone a voice through her writings. Throughout her career, Davis wrote an innumerable amount of works advocating for equal rights among all people, right up until her death in 1910. The following paper will analyze and discuss the reception and influence that Rebecca Harding Davis’s works of literary realism had on the hierarchy of society, in relationRead MoreFeminism During 19th Century American Short Stories4097 Words   |  17 PagesShort Stories Research Question: How is feminism revealed through the divergence of women’s roles in society and their own personal desires in the American short stories â€Å"The Yellow Wall-Paper,† â€Å"The Story of an Hour,† â€Å"The Storm,† and â€Å"Life in the Iron Mills†? Introduction Literature changes as current events change and as the structure of society begins to shift. American feminist literature started to become prevalent during the Victorian era, or around the latter part of the 19th century. This isRead MoreRealism In Life In The Iron Mills1604 Words   |  7 PagesLife in the Iron Mills is a novella that is hard to classify as a specific genre. The genre that fits the most into this novella is realism, because of the separation of classes, the hard work that a person has to put into their every day life to try and make a difference, and the way society influences the actions of people and their relationships. However, no matter what genre is specifically chosen, there will be other genres present that contradict the genre of choice. While the novella shows