Clothes Make the Man Theme Analysis

Horatio Alger didn’t coin the adage, “dress for the job you want, not the one you have,” but he certainly believed in it. Clothes are incredibly important in Ragged Dick, a story whose titular fourteen-year-old orphan shines shoes on the streets of New York. In the book, those who wear nice clothes and take care of their appearance, are successful, where those with little care for their apparel, or whose clothing is ill-fitted or worn, are presented as lazy—and thus bound to remain in poverty. This is more than just a reflection of class values or even the late-nineteenth-century obsession with clothing; Alger suggests that the clothes literally make the man. Even a simple upgrade in one’s wardrobe, then, is capable of changing a person and being a springboard into a new life of social respectability and economic prosperity.

Dick’s new suit—presented to him by Frank Whitney before the two begin their sight-seeing tour—doesn’t just change the way he looks; it changes the way he feels about his life. After seeing himself in the new suit, he realizes how dirty and worthless he looks in his former vagabond clothes and is unwilling to return to them. With this realization comes adjacent ones, like the understanding that he doesn’t want to eat breakfast, or live at, at the same places where boys in vagabond clothes do. It’s not that Dick feels as though he’s suddenly better than these boys. Rather, he feels as though he’s been awakened to a new way of life, one that has shown him who he is capable of becoming. The other boys could be awakened to their potential, too, if they only had the right clothes. In this way, the suit has alienated Dick from his previous existence. He no longer feels like he can be a part of that life, and instead begins making plans for a new one—one better fitting a boy in a nice suit. 

A similar transformation happens to Dick’s friend Fosdick when Dick helps him to purchase a new set of clothes. Fosdick always suspected that he was cut out to be more than a shoeshine boy. Indeed, he expected—because Fosdick had been groomed for college by his father, prior to his untimely death—that he would attend college and live a comfortable life. However, as his deteriorating circumstances forced him into the ragged clothes of a bootblack (someone who shines shoes), his vision for that life began to dim. While Dick’s friendship, coupled with the room and board that Dick provides the boy, give Fosdick a better life, his outlook isn’t improved until Dick buys him a suit. Once adorned in the trappings of a successful young man, however, Fosdick again believes that he can be one—and instantly finds the courage to look for a better job.

Almost as a testament to their figurative statuses in Ragged Dick, neither of the boys’ suits appear susceptible to wear and tear—despite the hard use that the shoeshine boys surely put them to. Both boys own only a single suit, which they wear daily during their long outdoor shifts. Besides the obvious, damaging exposure to the weather, the boys’ work consists of a constant bending down to shine shoes, which would wear the garments out, and a constant exposure to shoe polish itself, which would easily stain them. Indeed, this hard work is precisely the reason that the boys’ former clothes are so dirty, tattered, and generally out of order. Yet the suits are resilient—a testament to the fact that they are more than mere clothes and are, instead, enduring symbols of the boys’ newfound path towards a more respectable life.

It’s no wonder, then, that Dick and Fosdick putting on suits cause such anger in people like the street urchin Micky Maguire, who tries to hurt Dick when he sees him wearing fancy new clothes. Though Micky believes that Dick is “putting on airs” through his sartorial choices, the reality is quite different. Through his clothes, Dick has already taken the first step down the path to a better life. This new life is one that Micky, whose clothes are of the same vagabond sort as Dick’s were previously, will never have access to—not because he doesn’t own a suit, but because he doesn’t want to own one. He is, instead, quite happy to wear tattered hand-me-downs, including Dick’s original clothes, which Maguire steals by story’s end. At that time, Maguire had a chance to steal Dick’s better clothing, as well, but—happy with his station in life—had no desire to do so. Clothes, then, are yet another testament to Dick’s pluck and industrious nature.