Manhattan Transfer · Chapter
II: Metropolis explained
The chapter juxtaposes the revolutionary fervor of anarchist immigrants with the personal ambitions and domestic struggles of Ed and Susie Thatcher in New York City.
What happens
The chapter juxtaposes the revolutionary fervor of anarchist immigrants with the personal ambitions and domestic struggles of Ed and Susie Thatcher in New York City. Ed dreams of financial success for his daughter Ellen, while Susie suffers in illness and isolation. The chapter also captures the city's gritty energy through a tenement fire and the restless conversations of sailors and laborers.
Themes in this chapter
Urban Alienation
The city is depicted as overwhelming and isolating—through the tenement fire, the cramped rooming house, and Susie's lonely illness.
American Dream and Ambition
Ed Thatcher dreams of saving money for Ellen; Emile believes in getting ahead in America; contrasted with Marco's revolutionary critique.
Social Class and Inequality
The tenement fire traps the poor; Marco preaches anarchist revolution against capitalist oppression; the sailors discuss class and opportunity.
Characters to notice
- Ed Thatcher
Dreams of making money for his daughter Ellen, reacts to the tenement fire, and feels the pull of the metropolis.
- Susie Thatcher
Lies ill in bed, overhears neighbors, and frets over her husband's absence.
- Ellen Thatcher
Appears briefly as a child, wanting to be a little boy, and is described with coppery curls.
- Congo Jake
A sailor who discusses shipping out, women, and the futility of ambition with Emile.
- Emile Rigaud
A cabin boy who dreams of getting ahead in America, contrasts with Congo's hedonism.
- Marco
An older anarchist who speaks of revolution and the awakening of the working class.
Key passages
“I never see the dawn that I dont say to myself perhaps… perhaps today.”
Every dawn brings a glimmer of hope that today might be the day of change.
Marco expresses the anarchist's perpetual expectation of revolution.
“In America a fellow can get ahead. Birth dont matter, education dont matter. It’s all getting ahead.”
In America, success depends on ambition, not on background or schooling.
Emile articulates the American Dream as pure upward mobility.
“The world’s second metropolis. … In the brick houses and the dingy lamplight … he felt a marching like soldiers … towards something tall white full of colonnades and stately.”
Ed Thatcher senses a grand, almost military march of progress toward a magnificent urban future.
Thatcher's vision of New York as a rising metropolis blends personal ambition with civic grandeur.