Light Symbolism in "Life in the Iron Mills" Anonymous College

In an effort to shed light on the horrid realities surrounding industrialization and capitalism in America during the 1800s, Rebecca Harding Davis wrote a brilliantly realistic prose that captured the tragically enlightening story of a Welsh immigrant iron-mill worker. Davis used many methods to instill this reality in her readers. She took the concept of light and dark to create powerful symbolism in her story for the industrialization and capitalism that plagued America at the time. The darkness represents hardships and exploitation endured by the working class of immigrants while the light embodies what little humanity was left of them. The ever-present darkness that hangs over this story, and the little light that floods in, takes many different forms, through literal darkness and light, as well as implicitly figurative imagery.

Davis tainted her story in darkness, much like the darkness that tainted the lives of working-class immigrants, through the use of powerful imagery to bring her story to life. Not only are the lives of the workers consumed by darkness, but the town in which they live mirrors the same tenebrosity. Smoke suffocates the town, while greasy soot paints the town buildings with “black, slimy pools on the...