The Theme of Gender in Ragtime
2
Gender
The Theme of in Ragtime
Evelyn Nesbit:
A Scandal and a sex symbol
Dress of the 1920s
EMMA
GOLDMAN
Father
And Man's
Role in
Society
Emma Goldman was a very different character from Evelyn Nesbit. She was a huge feminist, advocating a very different aspect of women during this era. She had different ideas about relationships between men and women, and didn't think that men and women should stay in long term relationships, which was a new idea, that many people were unfamiliar with and uncomfortable with. She was a very strong individualist and very independant. She was an excellent leader of women's rights, being a step forward for women's rights while Nesbit's values were a step backwards and were more old fashioned.
Evelyn Nesbit was one of the first major sex symbols in America. Her character is small but very significant in the role of an upper class woman in this era. Her character is also very dependant on her husband which was typical of women in that era. Being a sex symbol she also represents scandal and the chorus girls who were there to entertain men, instead of being thie rown person, they were more objects than people. Evelyn Nesbit was motivated my money and material which, in the end, was her downfall. Her character represents the end of the era of women being considered as objects, just as the feminist movement was beginning.
Mother and her Role in Society
Father, like most men at the turn of the century, worked and provided for his family. Being the stereotypical man of the 20s, he expected to be the dominant figure in the home, thus his shock at when he came home and found that his wife had begun to become more independant of him, taking his role in his work, and providing for the family like he once had.
Mother represented women in the 20s in the middle class. She represented the morals that mothers were expected to have in that era. Though she was unappy in her marriage, Mother was faithful to her husband when he was not faithful to her. She was proper and, like most mothers were expected to do, she raised her child according to the values of the time. She took in Sarah and her child, showing the caring side of women, despite Sarah and her child's race.
In contrast to father, Mother's Younger Brother, like his sister, was a representative of the changing of times. Though he followed some of the values that father did, he had always been different from his brother-in-law. Younger Brother was a romantic, obsessing over Evelyn Nesbit and creating romantic situations in his mind. He was weak in appearance, not menacing or strong-willed, and quite anti-social. When he joined Coalhouse's gang, it represented the few tolerant people of America, willing to stand up for the African Americans of the time period.