Home

Get Out While You Can

You know those stories where life is really hard but it's all okay because the main kid (or whoever) has really loving parents? So while money's tight/the cool kids are terrible/little Joey didn't make the team, everything's ultimately okay because the kid has all they need thanks to the love that flows so freely at home.

This is not that story.

In Maggie, we have all the terribleness a kid could encounter outside the home: violence, turf wars, theft, prostitution—we could go on. But instead of taking refuge in their home, we see Jimmie and Maggie completely lacking a safe place.

Quiz time: When is a house not a home?

Answer: When your parents are abusive drunks who care more about hitting the bottle than putting food on the table. Now please say hello to Jimmie and Maggie's mom and dad.

To many of the Bowery urchins, though, the street is their home. Their "home street" (1.18) is where they have power, not in their own homes, which is why they expend a lot of energy defending it. Jimmie, in fact, resents being dragged away from his fight by his father: "He swore luridly, for he felt that it was degradation for one who aimed to be some vague soldier, or a man of blood with a sort of sublime license, to be taken home by a father" (1.37). Not being able to keep defending his turf is basically the worst to Jimmie, which shows us how much he loves said turf.

Okay, so it's a bummer that Jimmie's more at home on the streets than in his home. But here is where home imagery does something interesting: If Jimmie is among his make-shift family defending his home street, then Maggie is truly homeless because even the streets aren't safe for her. Once she is kicked out of her family's apartment, Maggie literally has no place to go, so before too long, she disappears into death. Hey, at least she won't get kicked out of this place, we guess.