Out of This Furnace by Thomas Bell Essays -- Papers Immigration Bell F

Out of This Furnace by Thomas BellOut of This Furnace tells a formidable story of a multigenerational family of Slovakian immigrants who comes to the fall in States in search of a better life in the new-fangled World. The patriarch of the Slovak family was Djuro Kracha, who arrived in the New World in the mid-1880s from the old country. The story tells of his voyage, his work on the squeeze to earn enough money to afford the walk to the stain mill about of Pennsylvania, his rejection by the larger mainstream community as a hunkey, and the lives of his daughter and grandson. As the members of this family become more generally acculturated and even Americanized, they come to resent the evil treatment and the discrimination they suffer.For the Kracha family, a slow rise to proud occupancy admitership was ended by a series of events (1) a pass of drunken abandon by Djuro (2) his return to the steel mills (3) his daughters (Mary) hymeneals to a fellow countryman also in the mills and (4) his grandsons increment discontentment with unfair drudge practices and abuses. These events in the Kracha familys lives become intertwined with the story of Americas own transformation between the 1880s and the 1940s. At the time that this family arrived in the United States, a new wave of easterly European immigration - spurred by growing industrialization and the advances in technology leading to the establishment of steel mills and other manufacturing and raw material processing factories and plants - was reshaping the American labor core. Djuros experiences, and those of his son-in-law, Mike Dobrejcak, reflect a certain level of hostility towards these Eastern and Central Europeans from mainstream Americans and earlier, more acc... ...erica has come to mean m any another(prenominal) different things to many different people. At the very heart of the American dream are the twin ideas of freedom and equality. This nation was founded on the republican pri nciples of justice for all, association with all nations, and entangling alliances with none. These basic principles have, over time, undergone some changes. The United States today has, for example, any number of entangling alliances that are highly influential in shaping its internal and foreign policies. Nevertheless, the principle of justice for all remains in force and continues to attract new immigrants each year, while fostering conflicted efforts to determine what truly constitutes justice and equality.Works CitedBell, Thomas, Out of This Furnace a Novel of Immigrant Labor in America, Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh, 1976.