Characters Discussed
Francis Majcinek
Francis Majcinek (mi-CHEE-nehk), a card dealer known to everyone in his westside Chicago neighborhood as Frankie Machine. Twenty-nine years old, with shaggy blond hair, buffalo eyes, and a square face, Frankie has such a steady, machinelike talent for dealing cards that he can boast that he has the touch; he is the man with the golden arm. Frankie also uses his arm for shooting up morphine, a habit he developed during World War II to relieve the pain of shrapnel lodged in his liver. Honorably discharged from the Army with a Purple Heart and a Good Conduct Medal, Frankie hopes to find a job as a jazz drummer. His addiction to drugs, his unhappy marriage, and his tendency toward criminal activities (for example, he gets caught trying to steal electric irons from a department store and serves nine months in jail) prevent him from realizing his ambitions. In a moment of anger and desperation, he kills Louie Fomorowski. As the police close in on him, Frankie hangs himself in a lonely hotel room.
Sophie “Zosh” Majcinek
Sophie “Zosh” Majcinek, Frankie’s wife. She is twenty-six years old, with pale eyes and ash-blonde hair in pin curls, unhappily confined to a wheelchair as the result of an automobile accident that occurred while Frankie was driving while intoxicated. Zosh and Frankie have known each other since childhood but have never really trusted each other. They quarreled before they were married, they quarreled on their wedding night, and they have quarreled ever since, excepting the thirty-six months when Frankie was in the Army. Once a sharp dresser and a fine dancer, Zosh now sits home all day, complaining and asking Frankie to wheel her around the apartment. When Frankie finally moves out, Zosh goes insane. In the end, she is confined to a mental institution, rocking herself on a cot, uttering not a word to anyone.
Molly Novotny
Molly Novotny, a nightclub hostess in love with Frankie. In her early twenties—though looking more like thirty, with a careworn, heart-shaped face, dark hair, and dark eyes—Molly earns a percentage of every drink she hustles in the early morning hours at the Club Safari. She lives downstairs from Frankie and Zosh, supporting not only herself but also Drunkie John, an alcoholic close to forty who abuses her both physically and mentally. Wanting to care for someone, Molly falls in love with Frankie, bestowing on him her tenderness, compassion, and pity. After Frankie is jailed for theft, she leaves the neighborhood and finds work as a stripper in a black nightclub. When Frankie later needs a place to hide from the law, Molly takes him in. For a brief moment, they make plans for a happy future together. Drunkie John alerts the police to Frankie’s whereabouts, however, and their dreams are over.
Solly “Sparrow” Saltskin
Solly “Sparrow” Saltskin, a small-time hustler and devoted friend of Frankie. The jittery, bespectacled Sparrow thrives on petty crime and gambling, including dog-stealing, window-peeping, and burglary; it is his idea to shoplift the electric irons, but Frankie is the one who gets caught. More than anyone else, Sparrow admires Frankie, but, under the unrelenting interrogation of Captain Bednar, he confesses to having witnessed the murder of Louie Fomorowski.
Louie Fomorowski
Louie Fomorowski, known as Nifty Louie, a flashily dressed, pale-faced former junkie who has kicked the habit and now deals drugs, dispensing the hits of morphine Frankie craves. When Frankie and Sparrow take Louie’s lucky silver dollar in a card game, Louie angrily tries to get it back from them but makes the mistake of insulting Frankie, who...
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responds with a crushing blow that snaps Louie’s neck.
Captain Bednar
Captain Bednar, known as Record Head, the weary commander of the local police station house. Sitting at the same scarred desk for twenty years, Captain Bednar has been recording the crimes in the neighborhood, retaining in his unforgiving memory the perpetrator of every misdemeanor long since forgotten by everyone else. With the unsolved murder of Louie Fomorowski relentlessly weighing on him, Captain Bednar forces Sparrow to implicate Frankie in the crime. In the end, it is Bednar who feels more lost, more alone, and ultimately more guilty than anyone else.
Characters
The essence of Algren's character development is encapsulated in his frequent references to Whitman, emphasizing the author's connection with his characters: "Here among West Division Street drinkers I felt that, did I deny them, I denied myself." The central figure of the novel, Frankie Macjinek, nicknamed Machine for his "golden arm," is recognized for his adept dealing techniques. A veteran with a Purple Heart, Frankie finds himself ensnared in an inescapable cycle of wrongdoing, confession, and redemption. His counterpart is the humorous Sparrow (Solly Saltskin); together, they embody the male friendship duo that is a hallmark of many picaresque tales. The primary distinction between them lies in how much reason governs emotion. Frankie is inherently emotional, expressive, and susceptible. War and an environment that represses emotions have left him scarred. Ultimately, he is betrayed by Sparrow, who is more impaired, more grotesque, and whose street-smart instincts prioritize self-preservation over friendship.
Algren's portrayal of female characters is particularly notable for its focus on the "bad girl" archetype with a heart of gold—prostitutes, b-girls, strippers, and women whose kind-hearted vulnerability leads them to fates as grim as those of their male counterparts. Molly-O epitomizes this type, serving as the common-law wife of Drunkie John, a cruel abuser who exploits her while continually subjecting her to physical and emotional harm. Her bond with Frankie offers her redemption by allowing her to channel her self-sacrificing nature towards someone who reciprocates rather than victimizes. However, it also further damages her by exposing her to repercussions for concealing him. For Algren, the abused woman becomes akin to a saint; the submissive, suffering female emerges as a figure of virtue. Furthermore, women are defined entirely by their sexuality, with submission and eventually motherhood, both of infants and adult men, being their ultimate achievements.
Contrasting the devoted, submissive woman is the woman who rejects her femininity and seeks to dominate men through stringent self-assertion and inducing guilt, exemplified by Zosh, Frankie's neurotic wife. It is implied that she develops a psychosomatic paralysis to both punish and further ensnare Frankie. By asserting her pride and resenting male exploitation, she denies her female essence, thereby crippling herself and ruining Frankie.
The other residents of West Division Street—Frankie's employer, Antek the owner, the dubious "fixer" Zygmunt, Violet and Old Husband, Blind Pig, and Nifty Louie—are vividly portrayed as distinctive stock characters. Opposing Frankie, Sparrow, and the other inhabitants of the Tug & Maul is Captain Bednar, also known as Record Head. He symbolizes both the established order, a system that legitimizes man's control over man, and the predicament of the "respectable" citizen, who, by denying others' humanity, denies his own human emotions. By perceiving his victims not as people but as "records," he commits a fundamental violation against compassion.
