Blue is somewhere in between a realist and an optimist. He knows that negative elements like the Bad Man exist and he refuses to have the clouded judgment of a "digger- who believes anything at the slightest possibility of its reality. However, on several occasions he shows weak judgment. He lets himself think that he, Molly and the boy are a family when in reality they are a dysfunctional group thrown together by circumstance. In the novel, Doctorow is showing that the most basic unit, the family, is built on illusion. Likewise, in broader terms, he shows that the town itself is built on illusion when he writes that there has not been any real ore in some time.
According to the American dream, we are to believe that not only can wild nature be tamed but that it is possible for us to remake ourselves. Every attempt at this in the novel proves to be a failure. Blue tries to be a man of action and an honest man, but he fails. He struggles for honesty in his ledgers but admits his inadequacy. His words remain blindly optimistic to the town's people and his family, and he fails to see things as they are to the end. At the close of the novel, he even comments that he should save the lumber in the town in case if someone needs it to create another town.
Molly fails to change herself or correct the past. She attempts to leave behind her life as a prostitute and becomes Blue's "wife,"" although not legally. She also becomes somewhat religious but we can guess that all of her prayers are for vengeance against the Bad Man. Eventually, when she attempts to seduce Jenks, the other prostitutes see that she is and always has been a "whore."" In the end, we see that she has always been wed to the Bad Man not Blue, in some way tied to him by her hatred. Though the Bad Man is killed, he is reborn in Jimmy Fee because Molly has trained him to be a hateful killer. Change is impossible and the nature of human struggling is cyclical.
