Ragtime

“He was solemn and attentive as befitted the occasion. Mother shut her eyes and held her hands over her ears. Sweat from Father’s chin fell on her breasts. She started. She thought: Yet I know these are the happy years. And ahead of us are only great disasters.”

Mother’s relationship with Father is one of solemn obligation. She does not enjoy having sex with him and, as the language indicates above, finds it repugnant. Her pressure to have sex is increased by the feeling of dread she has about the future. Mother is convinced their lives are only downhill from here. Mother will leave Father later in the novel for Tateh. Her second marriage is full of joy and love, proving her anxieties wrong.

“Most of the immigrants came from Italy and Eastern Europe. They were taken in launches to Ellis Island. There, in a curiously ornate human warehouse of red brick and grey stone, they were tagged, given showers and arranged on benches in waiting pens. They were immediately sensitive to the enormous power of the immigration officials.”

Doctorow describes the immigrant demographics and processes of early 20th- century New York. He paints the scene through a critical lens, likening the treatment of immigrants to those of cattle to slaughter. He uses terms such as “tagged” and “waiting pens.” He emphasizes the systemic scope—and blame— for such treatment, describing the overwhelming power of the immigration authorities.

“One hundred Negroes a year were lynched. One hundred miners were burned alive. One hundred children were mutilated. There seemed to be quotas for these things. There seemed to be quotas for death by starvation. There were oil trusts and banking trusts and railroad trusts and beef trusts and steel trusts.”

Doctorow uses repetition to emphasize the emotional impact of his statements. Repetition also allows him to communicate the systemic roots of oppression; he suggests that events occur cyclically because those in power are apathetic. The quote describes the upper class’ trusts, which profit from exploiting the working class. This explains why those in power have no interest in fixing the system.

“Comrades and brothers, Goldman said, can you socialists ignore the double bondage of one-half of the human race? Do you think the society that plunders your labor has no interest in the way you are asked to live with women? Not through freedom but through bondage?”

One of Doctorow’s stylistic choices is the withholding of quotation marks around dialogue. This allows him to weave speech amongst description, blending narrative elements into one stream. Due to this stylistic choice, Goldman’s speech to her fellow Leftists can almost be read as a speech directly to the reader.

“I bet it would shock you to know how free I’ve been, in what freedom I’ve lived my life. Because like all whores you value propriety. You are a creature of capitalism, the ethics of which are so totally corrupt and hypocritical that your beauty is no more than the beauty of gold, which is to say false and cold and useless.”

Emma Goldman lambasts Evelyn Nesbit for not reflecting on her lifestyle as a married woman. Goldman considers wives of the early 20th century akin to whores, women who have traded sex for economic safety. She criticizes Evelyn for her existence as a capitalist “creature,” urging her to realize her oppressive situation and liberate herself. Goldman’s words extend beyond Evelyn to other women in the novel, such as Mother, who is stuck in a difficult marriage.

“There was no question that the Eskimos were primitives. They were affectionate, gentle, emotional, trustworthy and full of pranks. They loved to laugh and sing.”

Doctorow juxtaposes these sentences to make a point. He contrasts the imperialistic attitude of the first line with the descriptions in the second and third, listing positive attributes of the Eskimos. Through contrast, Doctorow criticizes the colonizing powers who saw indigenous people as “primitive.” Doctorow implies that those in power—such as Father—are the ones who do not know how to live.

“Peary posed Henson and the Eskimos in front of the flag and took their picture. It shows five stubby figures wrapped in furs, the flag set in a paleocrystic peak behind them that might suggest a real physical Pole. Because of the light the faces are indistinguishable, seen only as black blanks framed by caribou fur.”

It is the ultimate irony: After months of trial and tribulation, the one photograph from Peary’s trip to the North Pole doesn’t capture him in all his “glory,” but renders him as blank. The blacked-out faces, with their proximity to the American flag, can be read as ominous, forewarning of the death and destruction that will soon come during World War I as a result of nationalism and imperialism. Peary’s trip to take credit for “discovering” the North Pole foreshadows what such colonizing, nationalistic acts will soon lead to in the early 20th century.

“And what of his own father, the burly self-confident man who had gone away, and came back gaunt and hunched and bearded? Or of his uncle shedding his hair and his lassitude?” [...] [E]ven statues did not remain the same but turned different colors or lost bits and pieces of themselves. It was evident to him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction.”

In Chapter 15, the boy muses on change, transformation, and evolution, studying his own family members and noting their altered personalities and physicality. This quote begins on a small, intimate scale, describing the boy’s father. As the quote progresses, the boy’s focus expands and he reflects on the entire world. His musings on change encompass the atmosphere of the early 1900s, which was a time of rapid—and sometimes, anxiety-inducing—transformation for those who lived during these years.

“So that was it, the strike would be won. But then what? He heard the clacking of the looms. A salary of six dollars and change. Would that transform their lives? They would still live in that wretched room, in that terrible dark street. Tateh shook his head. This country will not let me breathe.”

In Part 2, Tateh reckons with his position within the working class. He is troubled by the slow pace of change that Leftism brings about in America, chipping away at the impossibly large force of capitalism. Even though his labor strike is victorious, its miniscule changes won’t impact their lives. Frustrated with the American Left’s lack of progress, Tateh turns his back on the working class and forges his own way as an artist. Tateh’s arc captures a specific historical moment in 20th-century America. His frustrations are applicable to Doctorow’s readers in the 1970s, who had just witnessed the radical 1960’s failure to inspire revolution.

“Of course at this time in our history the images of ancient Egypt were stamped on everyone’s mind. This was due to the discoveries being reported out of the desert by British and American archaeologists. After the football players in their padded canvas knee pants and leather helmets, archaeologists were the glamour personages of the universities.”

Doctorow identifies imperialist obsessions as a piece of American identity—as intrinsic as football itself. Doctorow links American and British archaeologists. This suggests that Doctorow believes that the classically imperial British operate on the same ideological plane as Americans.

“He began to play. Ill-tuned or not the Aeolian had never made such sounds. Small clear chords hung in the air like flowers. The melodies were like bouquets. There seemed to be no other possibilities for life than those delineated by the music. When the piece was over Coalhouse Walker turned on the stool and found in his audience the entire family”

When Coalhouse Walker, Jr. plays ragtime, he unites the New Rochelle family in one room—the first time in the novel when this has happened. This scene, in which Coalhouse plays, speaks to the power of music to unite people.

“You would destroy each other inside of a year. You would see her begin to turn old and bored under your very eyes. You would sit across the dinner table from each other in bondage.”

Emma Goldman lectures Mother’s Younger Brother, who is anguished over ending his relationship with Evelyn Nesbit. Goldman insists that both he and Evelyn are better off breaking up and not ending up in a disastrous, consuming marriage. Goldman’s description of marriage accurately captures Mother and Father’s relationship.

“A militiaman stepped forward and, with the deadly officiousness of armed men who protect the famous, brought the butt of his Springfield against Sarah’s chest as hard as he could. She fell.”

When Sarah tries to help Coalhouse restore his Model T, the New York militia brutalize her. Just as Coalhouse is shut down by lawyers and state employees, so too is Sarah denied help. Sarah and Coalhouse’s deaths mirror one another. Both die unjustly. Their killers—the militia and police—are agents of an oppressive, racist system.

“In the morning Father took the North Avenue streetcar downtown. He strode to City Hall. He went in the door a widely respected businessman in the community. His career as an explorer had been well reported in the newspapers. The flag that flew from the cupola on top of the building had been his gift to the city.”

Father turns Coalhouse into the authorities. Through the character of Father, Doctorow draws imperialism, capitalism, and racial privilege together. Father is a capitalist who runs his own company. He engages with imperialism through his explorations, embodying the forces that Coalhouse is fighting to dismantle.

“Father remembered the baseball at Harvard twenty years before, when the players addressed each other as Mister and played their game avidly, but as sportsmen, in sensible uniforms before audiences of collegians who rarely numbered more than a hundred. He was disturbed by his nostalgia. He’d always thought of himself as progressive.”

Father observes modern baseball with contempt, fondly recalling the game’s decorum when he was younger. Baseball represents America itself. Father, feeling distanced from a game he once enjoyed, is a man no longer of the times. He is stuck in the 19th century, an age that will soon be gone forever. He is no longer the progressive he once fancied himself; rather, he is regressive.

“Coalhouse Walker was never harsh or autocratic. He treated his followers with courtesy and only asked if they thought something ought to be done […] His controlled rage affected them like the force of a magnet. He wanted no music in the basement quarters.”

Coalhouse Walker adopts the role of radical leader, launching a movement for Black Americans to assert their agency against city authorities. He is a fair, charismatic, and empathetic leader. Coalhouse bans music from his movement’s secret quarters. This suggests that he is separating himself from music’s uniting joys and now embraces a more divisive, confrontational philosophy.

“Ah, what a summer it was! Each morning Mother opened the white-curtained glass doors of her room and stood looking at the sun as it rose above the sea. [...] The rising sun erased the shadows from the sand as if the particles earth itself shifted and flattened, and by the time she heard Father astir in the adjoining room the sky was beneficently blue and the beach was white and the first sea bathers had appeared down at the surf to test the water with their toes.”

White repeats in this passage. These lines immediately follow the chapter dedicated to Coalhouse’s movement, juxtaposing the lifestyles of the impassioned radicals versus the sheltered upper class. We see the privilege of the New Rochelle family. While Coalhouse and his men are preparing to die for their cause, the family is free to vacation in New Jersey and escape.

“So he invented a baronry for himself. It got him around in a Christian world. [...] He dyed his hair and beard to their original black. He was a new man.”

While much of Ragtime criticizes American society and politics, Doctorow suggests that for some, America offers opportunities not possible elsewhere. Tateh has a difficult start in America and endures many trying experiences. However, he is able to reinvent himself as a rich artist and secure a comfortable life for his daughter. Through Tateh, Doctorow implies that navigating life in America is complex.

“She knew how to sew with a machine and had observed dogs mating, whores taking on customers in hallways, drunks peeing through the wooden spokes of pushcart wheels. He had never gone without a meal. He had never been cold at night. He ran with his mind. [...] A blue and green planet rolled through his eyes.”

The boy and Tateh’s little girl come together and form one of Ragtime’s most functioning relationships. The two children are starkly different than members of the older generations; while many of the adults in the novel are oblivious and ignorant, the children observe everything around them. The little girl and boy are wise and knowing despite their age—hence the way they love each other despite their different backgrounds. Through their relationship, Doctorow conveys that one can hope for the younger generations to improve society.

“As an anarchist, I applaud his appropriation of the Morgan property. Mr. Morgan has done some appropriating of his own. [...] The oppressor is wealth, my friends. Wealth is the oppressor. Coalhouse Walker did not need Red Emma to learn that. He needed only to suffer.”

Emma Goldman praises the Coalhouse movement. She proclaims that Coalhouse awoke to the depth of his oppression when his Model T was vandalized. The wealthy powers controlling the city and their employees, such as firefighters, police, and militiamen, are threatened by successful Black men like Coalhouse because of his race and economic success. Men in power believe that only white men should be wealthy, while people of color should be exploited for labor. Emma’s speech discusses capitalism and racism in American society.

“Either we all ought to go free or we all ought to die. [...] There are enough people in the streets to found an army!”

After Coalhouse reveals his plan to surrender to the authorities, his followers plead with him to keep the movement going and capitalize on the radical momentum they have built. Coalhouse refuses and insists on ending the movement. This could reflect the radical 1960s in the United States. Coalhouse’s subplot captures the disillusionment of young American radicals who looked to leaders of the 60s to propel them toward revolution—only to see their efforts dissolve by the 1970s.

“You have traveled everywhere and learned nothing, he said. You think it’s a crime to come into this building belonging to another man and to threaten his property. In fact this is the nest of a vulture. The den of a jackal.”

Mother’s Younger Brother admonishes Father for his conservative, imperialist ideology which values wealthy men like Pierpont Morgan but attacks men like Walker. Mother’s Younger Brother and Father have an antagonistic relationship, growing farther apart as the story advances. While Mother’s Younger Brother embraces progressive radicalism, Father enshrouds himself with the retrograde politics of a bygone era. This quote is from the final scene that they share together, in which both are at their most ideological extreme.

“Of this latter group he noted a marked deterioration in spirit. If the royal families were not melancholic they were hysterical. They overturned wineglasses or stuttered or screamed at servants. He watched. The conviction came over him that they were obsolete.”

Pierpont Morgan travels the world in 1914 and meets many of Europe’s royal families. He quickly becomes disillusioned by the world’s kings and queens, viewing them as petulant children. Their panic and rash behavior captures the pressure on European monarchies in 1914. As oppressed people called for independence and democracy throughout the globe, royal families felt the pressure. Forces came to a head during World War I, which caused the collapse of many European royal families.