Chasing the Falconers

When the Falconer children are sent to Sunnydale Farm, a juvenile detention center in remote Nebraska, the judge orders a change to their surname because “he [doesn’t] want the children suffering for their parents’ crimes” (5). They are given the name Eagleson because of its similarity to Falconer: “Falcon, eagle—like this was some kind of April Fools’ prank,” Aiden thinks (5). The eagle is synonymous with the United States government. It is the national bird and sits perched atop flag poles and spread across the Great Seal. Thus, when Aiden and Meg are given the surname Eagleson by a federal judge, they are marked as belonging to the government. They are the sons of eagles—“the responsibility of Adler and Juvenile Corrections” (147), as Agent Harris puts it. Harris continues to feel responsible for this transformation, reflecting, “I made then what they are today— motherless, fatherless, homeless fugitives” and transforming them into wards of the state” (111). Yet the eagle is not meant to be caged; it symbolizes freedom and liberty and justice. By caging the children, they take away the essential freedoms inherent in the dogma surrounding American democracy. Their freedom is taken, their liberties are restricted, and justice is out of reach.