93 pages • 3 hours read
Al Capone Does My Shirts
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The Importance of Empathy and Understanding
One of the most important ways that Moose develops as the novel progresses is by increasingly being able to put himself in another’s shoes. The more time he spends with Natalie, the more Moose recognizes her as a person with individuality and feelings. He is soon able to accurately gauge her moods and incipient actions, to interact with her in mutually satisfying ways, and eventually to accept her reality as a disabled person rather than sticking to his family’s idealized version of her as a perpetual 10 year old.
Moose’s growing empathy also emerges in his interactions with the people around him. After he witnesses Mrs. Capone interact with Baby Rocky on the boat, Moose is horrified to learn about her subsequent humiliating strip search. He imagines her with Al when he was a small child and rather than being fascinated by the mother of a notorious criminal, he sympathizes with her feelings.
Moose’s natural tendency to humanize rather than objectify also serves him well with the prisoners. Although he is suitably wary of inmate 105 and the man’s fascination with Natalie, Moose can also take in the fact that Natalie has formed a connection with 105 as a positive step forward for her. Later, this is also how he is able to get Al Capone to do him a favor for Natalie; by appealing to Capone as the son of a loving mother rather than an object of curiosity, Moose triggers that man’s empathetic side. This very specific connection with Capone makes him a human being rather than merely a hardened, dangerous criminal.
Disability
Much of the novel revolves around the intellectually disabled Natalie. Through her life, we learn about the way people like her were treated in the early 20th century. At the beginning of the novel, Helen is determined to get Natalie into the Esther P. Marinoff School. Moose resents Helen’s single-minded ambition since it has meant moving the family to Alcatraz, but for Helen, the alternative is permanently institutionalizing her daughter—a choice she is unwilling to make. Still, Helen assumes that there is a way to “fix” Natalie; she is unable to accept her daughter as she is, and instead has concocted a fiction everyone in the family must adhere to—that Natalie is a permanent 10 year old rather than a 16-year-old teenager. The shortsightedness of this strategy is readily apparent—all the more so when Natalie catches the eye of prisoner 105, whose intentions towards the naïve teen are unclear.
The novel chronicles Natalie’s progress and development. Though she is not on the neurotypical timeline, she makes tremendous strides towards selfhood and independence. As Moose spends more time with Natalie and the other children get to know her, she begins to exceed their expectations. She forms a bond with Theresa and begins to refer to herself in the first person. By referring to herself as “I” she is testifying to her individuality and identity.
Imprisonment
The novel presents the many different ways that people can be trapped, linking physical, mental, and emotional prisons in an examination of how people respond to being captive.
Most obviously, of course, there are the inmates of Alcatraz prison. Punished for criminal behavior, the prisoners at first are treated as objects. Piper uses the fact that some of them are famous to brag to her classmates. Her father, the Warden, has allowed his authoritarian style of authority over the prisoners to infect the way he interacts with the island’s civilian population and its child inhabitants. Eventually, however, Natalie’s friendship with inmate 105 and the connection Moose makes with Al Capone humanize and individualize these men, and by extension the rest of the prisoners.
For Moose and Piper, being on Alcatraz Island feels like being confined against their will. Piper’s moneymaking schemes are the result of her desperation to find a way to escape the place. Moose’s family has moved to the island so that his dad can earn enough money for Natalie to attend a special school—a decision that makes Moose feel ripped away from his old life and trapped. As he matures, Moose makes peace with the island—he finds a group of friends, gets to know the lay of the land better, and in the end feels less resentful of being stuck there.
Finally, Natalie’s condition is initially presented as a kind of imprisonment. Cam describes her intellectual disability as being trapped in another world that she can’t escape. Although this way of viewing her inner life helps Cam make sense of his daughter’s behavior, it ultimately alienates and infantilizes her in an unhelpful way. As Moose spends more time with his sister and learns more about her personality, needs, and wants, he realizes that despite her limitations, she must be accepted as an individual rather than simply tolerated as a burden. As the novel ends, Natalie has managed to break out of some of the behaviors that have trapped her most—she is able to contain her tantrum by running, she starts referring to herself in the first person, and she forms bonds with strangers on her own.
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