Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Maniac Magee, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Myth, Reality, and Heroism
Racism
Love, Loss, and Home
Human Dignity, Connection, and Community
Summary
Analysis
The next morning, Maniac emerges from the Beales’ house, still overjoyed from the previous day’s reunion. He runs back to the West End. Piper and Russell are genuinely surprised and relieved to see him, thinking the East Enders had surely killed him. When they enter the McNabs’ house, he sees George McNab, Giant John, and some of the Cobras lugging cinder blocks inside.
Even though Maniac is happiest with the Beales, he is faithful to his commitment to the McNab boys. The boys believe that the East Enders are vicious—and when Maniac returns to their house, he gets a clearer picture of why.
Themes
Maniac realizes that the McNabs are following through on their plans to build a “pillbox”—a defense against an expected invasion by the “rebels,” which is what they call the East Enders. Maniac talked to Giant John about it once in an attempt to understand—Giant John is convinced that the black residents of the East End are preparing to overrun the West End. Now that the McNabs are putting their plan into action, Maniac finds that their wretched house feels more unclean than ever.
While Maniac has encountered racist misconceptions before—through Grayson, for example—those were often in a subtler form. Here, he’s confronted with the full poison of the McNabs’ beliefs about their black neighbors.
Themes
