320 Davis, Rebecca Harding
stolen, for him, too, the question of justice—or, as
he might phrase it, his right to better himself, to
change the way he perceives himself in the world—
eventually asserts itself. He decides that he is also
entitled to live the sort of life he believes the wealthy
live, “a good, true-hearted life, full of beauty and
kind words. He only wanted to know how to use
the strength within him.” This plan fails, not only
because he does not understand how to carry it out,
but because he is caught with the stolen money and
sent to prison.
It is Deborah, however, whom guilt seems to
affect the most strongly. Although she believes in
Hugh’s right to the money, she is devastated by what
prison has done to him. She breaks down when she
sees him in jail, his spirit broken, believing that his
state is her fault. The circumstances in which she has
been forced to live do not allow her to perceive that
Hugh’s downfall should be blamed on the system
that put them both where they are. Deborah did
take the money, but it was the only possible way out
for Hugh, Davis seems to want the reader to believe.
His death, which she knows is imminent, must be
laid at the feet of this system.
Narrative intrusion in Life in the Iron Mills is very
pronounced, and it is not difficult to interpret Davis’s
opinions on the issues raised. During the course of
the night, Hugh enters a church, and Davis’s nar-
rator makes the point that the reason that Christ’s
ministry does not fail is that he came directly from
the class he was trying to help. In spite of Mitch-
ell’s thoughts that the rich cannot ultimately help
someone like Hugh, it is not implied that those in a
position to help are absolved of any obligation to do
so. Rather, the implication is that even though power
does not impart the power to reform, it does carry
with it the responsibility for compassion. It is only
compassion, Davis states indirectly, that can catalyze
reform. The rest is up to those involved.
Guilt in this story seems to only affect those
who are victims of the system, not those who uphold
it. Even though some of the wealthy men under-
stand—at least hypothetically—that they bear some
responsibility for Hugh’s inability to better himself,
Kirby, the mill owner, flatly rejects this idea, stating
that his responsibility toward his workers is finan-
cial, nothing more. However, he at least is honest
about his beliefs. The other men, Doctor May and
Mitchell, cannot claim such an excuse. Mitchell, in
particular, freely quotes the Bible: “Inasmuch as ye
did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto
me,” and yet he reports the theft to the police. In
spite of his implied comparison between Hugh and
Jesus, Mitchell seems to recuse himself from any
possibility of truly helping when he comments that
reform must come from the workers themselves
rather than the outside. Consequently, he also iso-
lates himself from any possibility of feeling guilt at
his need to believe that he cannot help. His actions,
unfortunately, typify those who control the system.
Helen Lynne SchicketanzHOpe in Life in the Iron Mills
There are many types of false hope dangled before
the characters in Rebecca Harding Davis’ best-
known work, Life in the Iron Mills. Set in the early
days of the Industrial Revolution, the story takes
place in a time and place in which hope would
seem an unattainable ideal, particularly for the low-
est class of workers at the center of Davis’s story.
Hugh Wolfe and his hunchbacked cousin Deborah,
the story’s central characters, work in an unnamed
industrial town where Hugh feeds the furnace in the
iron mill and Deborah works in the nearby cotton
mill. Although their lives are filled with unremit-
ting work and dire poverty, Hugh’s “groping passion
for whatever was beautiful and pure” and Deborah’s
unrequited love for Hugh set the two of them apart
from the other workers, most of whom turn to alco-
hol and fighting to alleviate the utter hopelessness
of their lives.
Hugh tries to explain this necessity for hope to a
wealthy visitor who has found a figure of a woman
he has carved from korl, a waste product created
in the iron processing. The woman is reaching out
her hand in supplication, looking for something “to
make her live—like you,” as Hugh tells the visitors.
Hope is kindled in his soul when the men visiting
the mill tell him that money is all that necessary to
make him a great sculptor, so Deborah steals money
from one of them. Even though she does not truly
understand their discussion or the magnitude of the
change Hugh seeks, she wants to make Hugh happy
in the hope that he will finally truly love her.