Journal for Rebecca Harding Davis

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Journal for Davis
October 1st, 2009

Quote:
“…laired by day in dens of drunkenness and infamy; breathing from infancy to death an air saturated with fog and grease and soot, vileness for soul and body.” -quoted from The Norton Anthology: American Literature, 7th Edition Vol. B
Summary:
Davis had created a extremely vivid image of the industrial city through her choice of words. The speaker in Life in the Iron-Mills talks about the muddy river water filled with boats and barrages. The image is clear of the inhabitants of this town. A very real image is painted for the reader. Davis is showing the reader how the land has changed from the town turning into an industrial city. The people the narrator of this story also talks about how the change of the landscape effects the people. Drunk people staggering through the streets beneath the window of the narrator. The image of a sky that has lost it’s blue hue and is now dark and cloudy with no promise of rain. A town can change, both it’s people and the nature surround it by the industrial change.

Quote:
“When “Life in the Iron-Mills” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1861 it was immediately recognized as a pioneering achievement, a story that captured a new subject for American literature—the grim lives of the industrial workers in the nation’s mills and factories.” -quoted from the Cengage Learning Online Study Center (http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/early_nineteenth/davis_re.html)
Summary:
Readers immediately understand the underlining message in the story Davies was writing about. The major change of America from country living farming communities to cities growing and factories and mills jobs becoming more common. The pictures of fields of crops and clean rivers would be replaced by the grayish hues of billowing smoke rising from dark bricked building. The descriptive realism of Davis’s work can create the mental image in anyone’s mind. Even to a country farmer that has not seen the change of the landscape that might creep out to the edge of his town. Middle and lower classes would see this change affect them the most. They would still be performing hard labor but with different tools and in different environments.

Response:
I had no problem understand what Davis was trying to show me as the reader. A clear image of this fictional town was created. Many details from the distant view of the river and the people walking and some staggering from being drunk. The hard etched lines on the workers’ faces and dirty clothes of the factory workers. Even the canary in the story seemed to be crying for the lust green nature it had be torn from. I really enjoy this work by Davis. I’m a visual learner and with this highly descriptive choice of words I can see the image writing about. I hope her writing style of realism is something I will be able to emulate even if it is only in my eyes.