Life in the Iron-Mills

Davis wrote about people working in the iron mills. She has a great talent for setting the scene and showing the background. In my personal opinion, she is the type of author that can manipulate and lead you in her direction so well she could make you feel sorry for a mass murderer. Not only that, but she can do it without agreeing with the man and without directly saying he is a good/ valuable human being. One of my favorite quotes from her writing was this: "I do not plead his cause. I only want to show you the mote in my brother's eye: then you can see clearly to take it out."

She shows a fantastic reality: Wolfe is a very talented artist who happens to be stuck in a quite unfortunate life. Each person is so complex that I think she could have framed a story such as this around anyone and shown why he/she is a worthwhile person. But the thing that made this story so memorable was that his talent was visible. It wasn't something hidden beneath the surface, it was in plain sight. Not only that, but it was described so vividly that the image still sticks in my head even though I have never seen Korl in my life. It leaves the impression of the talented artist and the dreaded life in the mills. The one image of that statue sums up the whole story.

I think the reason that so many people could stand for others to be treated as these workers were was because they never really saw them as "people." Sure, they were alive, but they were so one-dimensional. Davis puts the people, the ideas, and the injustice in such sight that it can no longer be ignored.

While I think it is easy to blame the citizens of the time for allowing the horrid truth to go on under the surface, I don't think we are blameless now. Personally, I try to avoid animal rights information and writings because I like eating meat and, being a poor college student, go for good price over good ethics. Let's just put it this way: if Davis had written about chickens, I would probably go vegetarian.