The Ragged Company Character Analysis

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Home: Belonging in Someone Else’s Heart The most common definition of “home” is a place where one permanently resides (Merriam-webstercom, 2015). However the term ‘home’ is ambiguous and cannot be defined by having four walls and a roof. Rather, it is about being surrounded by people that love and care for one another. One of the most popular idioms in the English language is “home is where the heart is”. This can be seen to be the true definition of “home” in many cases. One instance where this is proven is in Richard Wagamese’s novel The Ragged Company, a story about four homeless people who win the lottery and watch their lives change in an instant. At the end of the novel, after Dick’s death, Timber realizes that “home is not about a place,…show more content…
In many instances, the rounders regard the movies like their home. After winning the lottery, the first thing Digger said that he wanted to do with his money was go to the movies. After having passed out at his and Digger’s party, the first thing Dick wanted to do after getting out of the hospital was go the movies to see Field of Dreams, the thing that felt most comforting to him. Davidson states that “patterning of health status in a population is determined by contexts, places, and locations of where people spend their lives” (Davidson, 2015, p.207). Since the rounders were homeless, they spent their lives together rather than at a single location. They became each others’ social support systems. They spent the majority of their days in the movie theatre, which began as a shelter from the cold, but eventually became their safe zone. Even Timber would not have guess that it would have been the “fucking movies” that would bring them together (Wagamese, 2008, p.208). For him, going to the movies “was the first time in forever that [he’]d seen the light, and it touched [him], filled the empty, filled the coldness”, admitting that the movies made him feel whole again (Wagamese, 2008, p.208). This can also demonstrate that “social relations improve an individual’s life prospects and overall health” (Davidson, 2015, p.128). The rounders’ health was improved due to their social relations with each other being strong. Through this realization, it can be noted that the rounders’ have greater health and a home at the movies since it was where they spend the majority of their lives. Even if the movies could not be considered a home, they were still never without one. In addition, the rounders meet the social requirements to avoid absolute poverty. According to Power, while homeless, they had “the ability to visit friends and
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