City of Orphans

Willa Brunswick was once a well-dressed young girl living with her German family in New York City. Her father was cold and mostly absent, but her mother was an affectionate and solid presence in her life. When tuberculosis rips the matriarch from the family, Willa is left with only her mother’s ring and a callous, unfeeling father. When he disappears for good, Willa is left to fend for herself on the streets of the Lower East Side. Willa is famished, filthy, and destitute when her path crosses with Maks Geless. She summons the strength to fight off Bruno and his mates despite not having eaten for several days. Maks welcomes Willa into his home and eventually into his heart as a friend and adopted sister. She joins him in his quest to vindicate Emma’s honor and save his family from disaster. Willa soon learns that her father, whom she presumed dead, is indeed alive and actively involved in the plot to destroy Emma Geless.

Willa stands as a hopeful symbol for what can happen in the face of human kindness. Her father saw no value in her life and cast her off. The Geless family takes her in as their own without hesitation. She shares the commonality of the immigrant struggle, yet they find compassion for her simply as a human in need. They seek to meet her needs one by one without question. In the end, it is Willa who comes to the aid of the family in surrendering her mother’s ring to save Agnes. Her selfless offering is a poignant moment in the narrative.

Emma Geless is the oldest female child of the family and is employed at the famed Waldorf Hotel. She spends most of the narrative imprisoned at The Tombs as she has been accused of stealing a watch. She faces a trial and possible deportation back to Copenhagen, the place of her birth. The threat of separation is terrifying to her and the entire family. Emma suffers greatly during her incarceration as prisoners are kept in cage-like cells and denied food and sanitary living conditions. Her family visits her when they can, bringing news of her trial and food and comfort, but Emma’s physical and emotional condition deteriorates as the novel progresses. Emma’s character is mostly drawn through the eyes of Maks, her brother. They share a close, bond and Emma has shared parts of her life with him she has kept concealed from the rest of the family.

Ironically, the character around which the entire plot is based remains immobile, incapable of any action, throughout most of the novel. Her status as both a female and an immigrant places her at the bottom of the social order and thus renders her powerless to help herself and her family. Emma may not be present physically in each major scene of the novel, but her plight weighs on the hearts and minds of her entire family, and they find it difficult to speak of much else at meals and family gatherings. She serves as a point of unity for a family struggling between the pull of their heritage and assimilation. Each family member is on an individual journey, but Emma’s salvation binds them all together. 

Bruno is the redheaded leader of the Plug Ugly Gang who terrorizes the young newsies of the Lower East Side. He sets his sights particularly on Maks and Willa after Willa beats them with her stick defending Maks and her alley home. Bruno, however, is not working under his own volition. After picking the wrong man to mug on the street, Bruno has now become an indentured servant to Brunswick, a powerful and wealthy mobster. Bruno chafes under the inglorious bondage and longs to be free not just of his servility to Brunswick but from life on the streets. He dreams of escaping to Chicago and living a life on his terms. Despite his tough exterior, Bruno questions his decisions at key moments in the narrative: “He don’t even have a memory of his parents, who they were, where they came from, where they went. All he is, is Bruno. Him, alone. Bruno can’t remember when he wasn’t by himself, finding ways to live on his own” (304). He is yet another orphan in a sea of lost and forgotten children.

At first, Bruno appears to be the main antagonist in the novel, but it soon becomes clear there are forces much stronger and darker that haunt the lives of the main characters. Bruno has become a pawn for the corrupt machinations of adults in power. In a more modern, progressive city, Bruno would be seen as an adolescent in need of guidance, structure, and loving boundaries. Instead, Brunswick preys upon his weaknesses, using him with the full intention of discarding him afterward. There is no happy ending for this young man in the end. His confrontation with Brunswick is an invitation to certain death, yet he feels he has no other option. Pushed to his physical and emotional limit, he does what he knows best—fight. Bruno is the only main character whose last name is not known. He stands as a symbol for all the lost children of the city who did not find deliverance from poverty and became nameless victims of the city’s neglect.

Fourteen-year-old Agnes Geless works as an adult with her father at the factory and thus behaves much like an adult. Mama desires her to stay childlike in many ways. She fully embodies the American spirit in her quest to speak proper English and advance her studies in typing. She chides the family for holding on to their Danish customs and encourages them to fully assimilate to the American lifestyle. Along with her passion to excel, she also harbors painful secrets of which no one in the family is unaware. Even the youngest child recognizes her affection for Monsieur Zulot, the French boarder whom she has been forbidden to marry. Agnes suffers from wasting disease, or tuberculosis. Her family is painfully aware of her condition despite her attempts to conceal it, yet they do not have the means for her to see a doctor or receive lifesaving treatment.

Agnes illegally works at the shoe factory with Papa, exemplifying the plight of many children of the era. Kids left formal schooling in early adolescence to find jobs in factory work or on the streets to help provide for the family. Without the protection of child labor laws or truancy rules, children might be expected to work 12 to 16 hours in a factory. Notwithstanding the loss of education, these children worked in unsafe environments that could cause permanent injury or death. Agnes is trying to do her duty to family in working at the factory, but she will not give up on her education. She takes classes in the evening and often arrives home well after everyone else, exhausted and visibly ill. Though Emma is the sister unjustly imprisoned, Agnes is not spared from distress. In the end, she is saved by the beneficence of her newly adopted sister, Willa.