Open AccessFURNACES: VISIONS OF THE AMERICAN DREAM AND NIGHTMARE IN BRADDOCK
Author(s) -
John C. Spurlock
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
folia linguistica et litteraria/folia linguistica et litteraria
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
0eISSN - 2337-0955
pISSN - 1800-8542
DOI - 10.31902/fll.31.2020.6
Subject(s) - nightmare , dream , vision , deindustrialization , immigration , history , sociology , political science , psychology , law , anthropology , archaeology , neuroscience , psychotherapist
Two works of fiction, one a novel, the other a movie, provide a harrowing journey from the American Dream to the American nightmare. Appearing about 70 years apart, Out of this Furnace (by Thomas Bell) and Out of the Furnace (directed by Scott Cooper) closely examine the lives of steelworking families in Braddock, Pennsylvania. The novel shows the hopes and aspirations of Slovak immigrants slowly improving their material lot overthree generations. The movie fast forwards through two more generations to show Braddock in terminal decline, a victim of deindustrialization and all the social ills of America’s economic inequality. Taken together these works reveal the arc of American economic development in the 20th century as experienced in the lives of those who experienced it most directly.