Identity In Billy Bathgate

“The story was clearly over, as in juggling when the ball you throw up finds the moment to come down, hesitates as if it might not, and then drops at the same speed of that celestial light. And life is no longer good but just what you happen to be holding” (Doctorow 124). Success, some may say, is measured by the wealth and possessions acquired in one’s life. However, others disagree and say success is measured by the happiness and moral soundness instead. In the novel Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow, a 15 year old city boy explores what life is like in a gang, and how to gain a plethora of money through illegal means. The adventures and events Billy, the city boy, experiences throughout the novel change his identity and behaviors forever.

The vast travels the gang brings Billy along on, and the business deals Billy is included in expose this young, innocent boy to the 1)arcane world of gang business. Initially appearing unaware to Billy, the gang also exposes him to many means of violence and immoral crime. One day when a city inspector visits the apartment of Don Schultz, apparently at an inopportune time, Schultz kills the man instantly. “But as it happened he gave this roar of rage, took him down and mashed his windpipe and used the dance floor to make an eggshell of his skull” (107). Through the gang’s illegal bootlegging business and through the numerous killings, the morals Billy has in the beginning of the novel change drastically. Even though the harmless boy might not realize it now, witnessing immoral acts of justice in the gang change his perspectives on the world. “ I felt like I was not my reliable myself, I was smiling too much and talking like a sissy and I was reduced to devious practices, doing things I would have never imagined myself doing”(135). At first, Billy is a young boy who is just trying to take care of his mother with the little money he has. Now that he exposes himself to the violence of the gang in ways of receiving an overabundance of money, Billy figures that in order to be rich, and therefore “successful”, in the world, one must forget about his morals and the important things in life and only focus on