City of Orphans

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2000

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Symbols & Motifs

New York City

The city of New York has long been known for its storied glitz and glamour. People from all over the world are familiar with its iconic landmarks like Times Square and Central Park and the opulence of its architecture. However, the New York City of the late 1800s was quite different from the posh metropolis it is today. Lacking the infrastructure needed to support rapid industrialization, the city teetered on the brink of disaster, either through economic collapse, disease outbreak, or rioting disgruntled workers. Maks Geless’s relationship with the city is complex. While it is his home, he is not fully accepted into society due to his identity as a Danish immigrant. He feels the crushing weight of the poverty, filth, and mistreatment of those like him, yet he mentions specific street names with fondness, describing each with their own unique personality. He is also in awe of the splendor of the Waldorf Hotel. Many important scenes take place in its interior, and the reader is taken on a tour of true New York glamour through Maks’s eyes.

Avi explores the city through Maks’s mind as it becomes a character itself. The streetlamps even appear to have eyes that glow. The descriptions take on a slow-motion effect, despite the bustling of the city-goers: “Sellers crying out their goods in English, German, Italian, Yiddish, Chinese, Spanish, Hebrew, Romanian, plus so many other languages, it’s like the cheapest boardinghouse in Babel” (7). The Biblical reference here inverts the idea of the dispersing of languages and portrays all the ethnic groups, though still unique in the varying tongues they speak, united in the goal of selling their goods to support their families. Maks is always running from home to other locations, mostly out of fear but also out of a sense of urgency to save his sister. However, in the moments he pauses to take in the urban landscape, he slows down absorbing the assortment of people and experiences happening around him. Maks can overlook the garbage-strewn streets into the real heart of the community—its people. The Lower East Side pulses with sorrow and adversity but also with the tenacity and perseverance of individuals and ethnic groups. The city is the landscape of Maks’s trials as well as the place that keeps him grounded.

The Newspaper

At the turn of the century, the newspaper became an important part of life and culture for those living and working in large cities. It was a method of not just disseminating the news to citizens, but also of connecting them. In a world where humans are more connected through technology than ever before, it is difficult to picture a society without mass media. However, until the proliferation of news media, most people would rely on word of mouth to get the daily headlines. Additionally, the news would be limited to community or local happenings only. Newspapers gathered not only news from the town but also national and international stories. To read the same content as the neighbor next door provided a sense of connectivity to people. Newspapers also contributed to the rise of popular culture. Sports, hobbies, and activities became national news to which everyone had access for just a few pennies. Newspapers eventually become the vehicle for necessary social and political change as muckrakers like Upton Sinclair used them as a platform to expose corruption and hazardous working conditions.

As the novel opens, the newspaper takes center stage. It is an essential part of life in the city and of Maks Geless’s existence as his newsie job generates valuable income for the family. Even though Maks had to quit formal school to take the job, it is still a position that makes him feel important. He is a savvy salesman and has mastered the art of emptying his stack of papers each day by overselling hyperbolized headlines and conning customers out of a few extra coins. Additionally, his newsie gang is like a second family. They may all come from different backgrounds and life experiences, but they share the commonality of existing as children in rough city. They welcome Willa into their group as she steps in to help in his absence, and they do not flinch when the time comes to take up arms and defend her against the Plug Uglies. The novel ends in a full-circle moment as Maks sells papers with headlines of Brunswick’s murder and, “For once, he is the news” (348). Maks has dreams of making headlines one day for an act of greatness, but he could never have imagined it would have played out like this.

Time

The motif of time functions on several levels in the novel. As a whole, the work takes place in a compressed format, over just a few days. The narrator gives almost an hour-by-hour account of the events as they take place, highlighting the limited time to gather evidence and prove Emma’s innocence before her trial. The children race to and from locations with a sense of urgency. Time is also symbolized by the clock in the Geless home. Papa is in charge of winding it but has forgotten in his grief and mental turmoil. The novel also captures a specific era in American history, the last years of the 19th century. The industrial age came with a newfound focus on time, with productivity as the goal. Workers were paid by how much they could produce in the least amount of time possible. Time became less about seasonality and more about economic prosperity. This is why Papa cannot even pause a moment in his work at the shoe factory to process his emotions. He must keep the pace to earn his wages.

The Breguet watch is an important piece to the plot puzzle but serves a symbolic purpose as well. Founded in France in 1775, the company became a symbol of affluence. Brunswick brazenly wears the watch in public, confident he will not be caught for stealing it and scapegoating a teenage maid for the crime. The opulence of the timepiece paired with the sinister nature of the crime serves as a metaphor for the social climate of the era: “The watch is its own sun” (343). A watch used to be a method of telling time, has now become a sign of status, and in this case is the center of a dastardly crime. As the sun will eventually push out the darkness, the emergence of the watch from Brunswick’s pocket reveals the truth in the end.