Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Al Capone Does My Shirts, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Disability, Dignity, and Shared Humanity
Friendship and Community
Family
Growing Up and Doing the Right Thing
Summary
Analysis
Today—January 4, 1935—Moose Flanagan moved to Alcatraz, a “twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water.” Other kids live here (including his sister, Natalie, though she doesn’t count) because their dads work for the prison, like Moose’s dad does. There are also “a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two.” Moose doesn’t want to be here, but nobody cares about what he wants. His family came here so Natalie can go to the Esther P. Marinoff school, which has no chalkboards but is where kids like Natalie can smear macaroni salad in their hair and wear their clothes inside-out.
From the beginning, Moose gives readers the sense that he doesn’t have a lot of power in his family. The family instead seems to revolve around Natalie, which is interesting given that she “doesn’t count.” What this means isn’t entirely clear, though it seems linked to the aside that “kids like Natalie” can do things Moose frames as odd and abnormal at their school. Additionally, Moose seems to feel trapped on Alcatraz, a high security federal prison built on an island off the coast of California, near San Francisco.
Themes
Looking out the apartment window into the dark night, Moose can see a guard tower—a “popcorn stand on stilts,” where someone’s dad is sitting with guns and a toilet (all guns are kept up high, and so that guards never have to leave their posts, there are toilets in the guard towers). Dad is out on guard duty, even though he’s an electrician. Mom is unpacking boxes in her room, while Natalie is sitting on the kitchen floor with her button box. Moose sits with her and asks if she’s okay. In her stilted way of speaking, Natalie says that they went on a train, ate sandwiches, and looked out the window. Moose says she’s right, and now they’re here with Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly. Natalie says that she and Moose go to school, and Moose reminds her that they’re going to different schools. He notes that the Esther P. Marinoff school is nice, but he can tell he isn’t fooling Natalie.
As Moose describes Alcatraz, particularly the “popcorn stand on stilts” guard tower, he gives the impression that the buildings—at least some of them—are flimsy and inadequate for a high-security prison. Then, noting that Dad isn’t even a real guard heightens the impression that Moose doesn’t feel safe here. However, he does seem to have a positive relationship with Natalie, despite her as-yet-unspecified differences. Noting that he can’t fool her suggests that they know each other well, and that generally, Moose is honest with his sister.
Themes
Natalie was the one to give Moose (whose real name is Matthew) his nickname when he was five. He was tiny then, but now, he’s five-foot-eleven and is taller than Dad. Moose considers going to his room, but it smells funny. The apartment is weird: there’s no washing machine or phone, and the radio has been gutted. Do they let criminals into apartments? To try to manage his anxiety, Moose thinks about telling his best friend, Pete, about Alcatraz. Pete would be able to make Moose laugh, but right now, Moose doesn’t think anything is funny. In fact, he’s so afraid that he’s going to sleep in his clothes.
Moose focuses on how strange, inadequate, and frightening the amenities on Alcatraz are, but the unspoken part here is that Moose’s parents brought him here, to a place where he feels unmoored and unsafe. This highlights Moose’s belief that he's not as well cared for in his family as he perhaps believes he should be.
Themes
