Ragtime
RagtimeUp until the late 1900’s, the American populace on the whole had assumed a very optimistic view of American history. Glossing over disgraceful events, emphasizing the brighter points in our history, our culture has attempted to ignore the obvious fact that we have had, and still have, our fair share of problems. In Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow unabashedly exposes some of the worst aspects of American life in our more recent history. Doctorow doesn’t hold back anything, providing detailed examples of human cruelty and sacrifice, and the evolution of American society. While critiquing American society was not the sole purpose of his novel, Doctorow does expose and examine many issues that people tended to ignore like the impoverished immigrant working class, racism, and feminism. The emphasis Doctorow places on these issues makes it clear that he thought, “…America is a mistake, a gigantic mistake.” (33).
The period in American history at the turn of the 20th century is commonly referred as the Gilded Age. This is in reference to the increased size of the lower classes and the emergence of the elite capitalist as a new hegemonic class that possessed riches and power that were practically undreamt of. This era saw a dramatic increase in the size of the lower classes as immigrants filled the country and jobs became scarce, and a decrease in the size of the middle class. However, despite the less than ideal conditions that existed for many people in the country, middle and upper class citizens had the impression that they were in an era of prosperity. They turned a blind eye towards all the suffering and hardships of the lower class, in their perfect, ignorant world “There were no Negroes. There were no immigrants” (3). Doctorow recognized the dominant attitude of the times for what it was, pure ignorance, and set out in Ragtime to educate the middle and upper class about the real world and the hardships that many people have to endure.
In the beginning of the novel, the nameless family that the story revolves around has an air of purity to it. At this point in time everyone seems to be as it should be, they are well off financially, they have a normal family residing in a normal house in a normal neighborhood. The only member of the family who has any inkling of the darker times ahead is the mother who thinks to herself “Yet I know these are the happy years. And ahead of us are only great disasters.” (11). She is the only one who realizes that life is too idyllic to remain that way. Father’s departure for the North Pole marks the beginning of what the family would have viewed as a decline in their quality of their lives. In truth however, they are merely opening their eyes to a world that is not as perfect...
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