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"Kerist I thought you were going to look for a handout…. I guess you ain’t a Newyorker…. I’ll tell you what to do. You keep right on down Broadway till you get to City Hall…."
"Is that kinder the center of things?"
"Sure it is…. An then you go upstairs and ask the Mayor…. Tell me there are some seats on the board of aldermen…"
In FIRST SECTION: II. Metropolis, an aimless Bud looks for a job in New York and is continuously looked down upon and cheated. Here, the butcher boy that Bud is speaking to assumes he is a hobo because of how he’s dressed, and he dismisses Bud because of his poor appearance in a superficial New York City. Besides his lack of money, Bud’s simplistic way of thinking about the city makes it easy for people to take advantage of him. He believes that if he is in the center of things, he will inevitably find work. Even though he’s a hard worker, he’s marginalized because he doesn’t have a union card, and the unions have a stranglehold on much of the construction that goes on in the city. Bud becomes accustomed to apathetic treatment during his time in New York, but it wears on him. The city is relentless and cruel to people at the bottom of the social and economic ladders. Eventually, Bud gets to the point where he can no longer do daily battle with the relentless superficiality of the city, and he gives up.
"Well the first thing that happened was that Isabel Clyde’s husband Ralph Nolton who was managing the company was a dipsomaniac… and then the lovely Isabel wouldn’t let anybody on the stage who didn’t act like a dummy for fear the rubes wouldnt know who the star was…. Oh I cant tell about it any more…. It isnt funny to me anymore, it’s just horrible… Oh Elaine I’m so discouraged. My dear I’m getting old.’ She suddenly burst out crying.”
In THIRD SECTION: III. Revolving Doors, Ruth and Ellen are out having tea, and Ruth shares her experience with a traveling repertory company that she worked with the previous summer. Ruth begins telling the story in a lighthearted way, as this is a story that would have been endless fun to tell her friends in her youth. Then she is overcome because the memories get the better of her. Ruth is one of the few Broadway actresses who experiences the obstacle of aging in the novel. She cannot just jokingly tell the story because it strikes her as empty now. Ellen can get out of acting, but Ruth is stuck, and she is starting to feel desperate. Ruth’s self-worth is tied to whether or not she can continue working, and her days are quite numbered. Quietly resenting Ellen because she got out of Broadway work, Ruth thinks Ellen cannot possibly understand. She envies the freedom that Ellen has found and worries about her future. She does not realize, however, that Ellen only has this freedom because she traded her happiness for a loveless marriage to someone that could further her career in a youth-obsessed city.
“Still he might have made something of himself with all his advantages… dreamer, wanderlust… Greenwich Village stuff. And dad did every bit as much for him as he did for me... And this divorce now. Adultery… with a prostitute like as not.”
In THIRD SECTION: V. The Burthen of Nineveh, James Merivale reflects on what he considers to be failure and success. James has now achieved financial success, having followed the path laid out for him by his father. He has no respect for Jimmy because he rejected the wealth within his grasp. In keeping with the old New York mindset of his family, from James’s perspective, if Jimmy is not financially wealthy, he is a failure. Always seeming older than his years, James looks down on Jimmy’s nonconformist choices. Although he does not admit it to himself, James has little freedom in the life he has built for himself. He has his entire life planned out for him, he dresses and carries himself in a way that makes him seem older, and he has looked past his brother-in-law’s questionable behavior because of the connections he offers. The fact that James thinks about Jimmy’s path raises the question of whether he is jealous of the Jimmy’s freedom regardless of his own financial success. Jimmy is doing things that James will never have the opportunity to do.
