Challenging Idealized Womanhood: The Dichotomy Between Deborah and the Korl Lady in Life in the Iron-Mills

irl of ours—only eighteen; with a face of the Madonna's order... Yet the small, pinched features, the narrow, slanting eyes, the sharp chin, the pale, square forehead, telling of long nights, and laborious days, of poverty, hunger, and debasement..." (Chapter 1). This text emphasizes Deborah's humanity, her difficulties, and the toll her terrible existence has taken on her. The korl lady sculpture, on the other hand, depicts an idealized woman fashioned of industrial waste. "The figure was grand...