"Life in the Iron-Mills" is set in a small village whose center is industrial work, especially that of the iron mills. It is described as a polluted and oppressive village, inhabited by laborers, mostly “masses of men, with dull, besotted faces bent to the ground, sharpened here and there by pain or cunning; skin and muscle and flesh begrimed with smoke and ashes”. The short story's protagonist is Hugh Wolfe, an iron mill laborer who possesses artistic talent and a spiritual desire for higher forms of pleasure and fulfillment. Despite the hopefulness of Wolfe’s artistic drive, he becomes the story's tragic hero, as his yearning for a better life leads to his imprisonment and ultimate death.