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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ragged Dick: Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Power of Thrift
Fortune Favors the Industrious
Clothes Make the Man
The Value of Education
American Democracy vs. The British Monarchy
Summary
Analysis
Dick navigates to the corner of Chatham and Broadway, where a series of ready-made clothing shops line the streets, hocking goods that they claim are being sold for less than cost. As the merchants try to sell their goods to the boys, Dick mocks them and sometimes explains their various scams to Frank, who is naïve to such things.
Surprisingly, ready-made clothing was a relatively new commodity even in Dick’s time. Many men of means would still have their clothing custom-made for them by a tailor (as, indeed, Frank probably had).
Themes
Eventually Dick and Frank find a proper hat store, and Frank buys a new hat for Dick, who simply leaves his old hat in the street. It’s quickly picked up by another shoeshine boy, whose hat is in even worse repair.
The two make their way back from Chatham and Broadway, with Dick continuing to point out landmarks. Frank expresses his amazement that the city can hold so many shops, and Dick points out that they haven’t even seen the majority of them. Frank asks about Barnum’s Museum. Dick replies that it’s good, but not quite as exciting as the Old Bowery.
The Old Bowery is the theater Dick most enjoys frequenting. While going to the theater might not seem like a bad thing for a young man to do, the Old Bowery was in a part of town known for its criminality.
Themes
On their sight-seeing tour, Dick and Frank visit the New York Hospital and Taylor’s Saloon, where they eat ice cream together. In the saloon, Dick jokes about all the stocks that he owns in the Eerie Railroad Company. A nearby businessman overhears this and believes it, given Dick’s appearance. He gives Dick stock advice before leaving, and Dick remarks on his new life as a “man of fortune.”
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