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Idealistic and difficult, Mother's Younger Brother searches for a sense of self throughout the novel. He falls in love with Evelyn Nesbit, and spends some time with her before she leaves him.
Sarah mothers a child with Coalhouse and dies attempting to fight for Coalhouse's cause.
Mother's Younger Brother becomes proficient in the use of bombs. Coalhouse and his followers cause an explosion at the Emerald Isle firehouse, killing four volunteers. Father and Mother's Younger Brother fight over the situation, and Mother's Younger Brother leaves the household to join Coalhouse and his followers. Mother and Father move to Atlantic City to escape the scrutiny of the townspeople. Willie Conklin also begins to feel a lot of pressure to leave town.
Ragtime is unique adaptation of the historical narrative genre with a subversive 1970's slant, the novel blends fictional and historical figures into a framework that revolves around events, characters and ideas important in American history.
An extraordinary tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century and the First World War.
The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Ragtime number 86 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005.
Along with, "Ragtime," Doctorow has written many other successful books including: "Andrew's Brain," "All The Time In World," "The City of God," and "Welcome to Hard Times." E. L. Doctorow has won many awards such as the National Book Award, two PEN Faulkner Awards, and the Gold Metal for Fiction given to him by the American Academy of Arts.
Mother is part of the upper class family living in New Rochelle. Dissapointed by her marriage to Father, she marries Tateh after Father's death. Throughout the novel she experiences many changes through her care for Coalhouse and Sarah's child as well as her new found awareness of her sexuality.
The real-life figure of Evelyn Nesbit was a symbol of sex and beauty at the turn of the century. She endures the trial of her husband Harry Thaw for the murder of her ex-husband Stanford White. In the novel she develops an interest in Tateh and his little girl and attempts to help them escape from poverty of life as an immigrant on the Lower East side.
Project by Mikahl Barajas
This historical fiction is mainly set in the New York City area from 1900 until the Untied States entry into World War 1 in 1917.
*a room or a set of rooms forming a separate residence within a house or block of apartments.
Pre-AP English 10
In Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow employs a unique narrative style. The narrator seems to be neither an omniscient and uninvolved individual nor any one specific character. Critics have varying opinions on the origin of the narrative voice; most critics agree that the voice appears to be that of an American writing in 1974. The narrator's sense of historical perspective, as well as his use of ironic and rhetorical commentary, seems to support this notion.
Ragtime seems to me to be the kind of book that goes beyond a book review. It is beautifully crafted, ingeniously pulled together and craftily presented. It is powerful, emotional, and honest in its slow progression. Doctorow's grasp of historical events is so complete that I found myself wanting to look up every detail to find out what was true and was was fictionalized - the mark of successful historical fiction, if you ask me. Highly recommended.
Father owns a company that manufacatures fireworks and other accoutrements of patriotism such as flags and banners. He feels alienated from his family and his environment; this feeling will never entirely disappear.
Tateh is a Jewish immmagrant. In the first part of the book he lives with his daughter on the Lower East Side as a peddler* and a silhouette artist. Tateh experiences a crucial and meaningful feeling of separation from his previous socio-economic position after reaching the pinnacle of his disillusionment with the American dream. Later in the novel, he demonstrates his entrepreneurial abilities through the sale of the movie books he has designed and exhibits a more profound understanding of how to succeed in a capitalist system.
Coalhouse is a ragtime* pianist. He is the father of Sarah's child. Coalhouse represents all African Americans who challenge the expectations many whites have of them. However, his character ultimately becomes the quintessential angry black male as he resorts to violence to resolve his feelings toward society.
The conflict for all characters is the need for consummation in their lives. They strive for the promised American dream and find only hardships.
Imprisonment and False Liberation
*A person who goes from place to place selling small goods
Doctorow incorporates the tension between imprisonment and liberation into the struggles of several of his characters. Imprisonment manifests itself in many different ways in the novel: physical, emotional, philosophical, political, and economic. For example, Harry Houdini, a famous escape artist, astounds crowds with his ability to escape from any given enclosed area; therefore, his struggle does not originate in physical imprisonment, but in emotional imprisonment. Publicly, he demonstrates his freedom from imprisonment. However, he does not derive any sense of satisfaction from his feats, because privately, his obsession with his mother, which continues even after her death, prevents him from emotional liberation. Tateh also experiences a feeling of imprisonment during his time in New York, and attempts to "escape" to Lawrence, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and other locations.
*Music characterized by a syncopated melodic line and regularly accented accompaniment, evolved by black American musicians in the 1890s and played especially on the piano