53 pages • 1 hour read
Al Capone Does My Homework
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Symbols & Motifs
Deception and Pretending
Deception is a motif throughout the novel that aligns with the theme of Moral Decision-Making in a Young Person’s Life by deepening the depiction of Alcatraz’s moral ambiguities. In Alcatraz, things often are not what they seem: An innocent-looking laundry bag can be a repository for counterfeit money, and a scribbled remark by Al Capone on a child’s essay may contain a coded life-and-death warning. To elude the sharp eyes of guards, convicts, and parents, deception flourishes on the Rock, on both sides of the prison bars. The charming Donny Caconi turns out to be the smoothest of the nonincarcerated deceivers, plying a smile and a kind word to mask his many rackets, including arson, counterfeiting, card-cheating, and small-time grifts, such as cheating children in fixed bets.
The island’s children, however, are no strangers to deception, as Piper Williams demonstrates when she tries to pass off her pricey sweater, bought with counterfeit money, as a gift from a “secret admirer.” To calm his sister, Natalie, Moose tries to focus her mind by pretending to get things wrong, like dates and math problems, playing the “Stupid Moose game,” a benign form of deceit (79). Darby’s daughter, Janet, practices a more ambiguous deception, either pretending that her imaginary pixie friends are real, or pretending not to believe in them to avoid worrying her parents; no one quite knows which. By contrast, Moose’s sister Natalie does not “fake” anything: Deception is foreign to her nature. To visit her father in the hospital, she manages, through sheer force of will, to hide her condition from the receptionist, illustrating the challenges of “masking” her neurodivergence, which Moose and others often demand of her.
Games
Alcatraz Island, with its isolation, privations, and scarcity of recreational options, can be tedious for convicts and residents alike. Many of them fill their time with games—some, as might be expected at a prison, less congenial than others. These games are a motif that builds the narrative’s setting and illustrates the differences between characters.
Moose, large for his age, has gotten quite good at baseball. He and his friends also play an Alcatraz version of rock, paper, and scissors, which they call “rock, newspaper, and shiv.” Moose also uses games to teach concentration and the “social graces” to his sister, whether by testing her alertness with the “Stupid Moose Game” or by taping math problems to his face to help her make eye contact. Other, less honest denizens of Alcatraz use games, combined with deception, to make a few illicit bucks, notably Donny, who cheats Moose in a “throwing game” as well as several adults at a friendly poker match. The convicts, however, play a considerably less friendly and potentially deadly competition, a “points game” that awards prestige points for attacks, including murder, on guards and wardens. Late in the novel, baseball also becomes a matter of life and death, when—with a perfect beanball pitch at Indiana—Moose’s prowess at his own game foils the cons’ game and saves his father’s life.
Numbers
At Alcatraz, most of whose residents are known equally by their convict numbers as by their names, numbers play an inescapable role in daily life. The motif of numbers represents themes of control, moral ambiguity, difference, and resilience. Counting, especially, is a constant motif, whether of the number of convicts in work release on the dock, the remaining months or years left in one’s sentence, or one’s prestige points for spitting on guards (or worse). In Al Capone Does My Homework, numbers are also used as code, such as in the notes Count Lustig sneaks to Donny, telling the location of his counterfeit money caches. For Natalie, numbers represent both her differences and her intellect. Natalie, a math prodigy, has a special fixation on numbers and counting, which allows her to spot a cheat at her father’s poker game. Moose uses this affinity of hers to try to coax her into making eye contact with him, with mixed success: She solves the math problems taped to his forehead with barely a glance. Meanwhile, numbers in Piper’s life signify her troubled relationship with moral decision-making. Her attempts at multiplication get her into trouble when she discovers she can double any money she leaves in her laundry, as if by “magic.” This puts her in debt to the tune of $285, which she thinks that she can recoup with babysitting, having first schemed to sell Al Capone’s autograph for the money. Capone, condemned to count down, tediously, his own debt to society day by day, advises her to do the same: “Do your own time,” he scratches on the baseball she threw to him (201).
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