21 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
sees “rags” as a metaphor for poverty. Marshall Bruce Gentry highlights gender
representations. Kathleen M. Puhr and David Segal focus on the Postmodernist
techniques Doctorow uses in the novel. Students interested in comparing the
novel to the 1981 film adaptation will find the articles by Anthony B. Dawson,
Leonard and Barbara Quart, and Joanna E. Rapf useful. Hillary Chute discusses
the foregrounding of visual images in Ragtime and compares the work to graphic
novels. Doctorow’s papers are in the Special Collections Department of New
York University’s Fales Library; a description of the holdings can be found at the
website http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/fales/doctorow_restricted.html,
which also features a useful biography.
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH
- Critics tend to view the title, Ragtime, either as a metaphor for a historical period
or as the musical style on which the structure of the novel is based. That struc-
ture, which Parks describes as “repetition colliding with change, convention with
innovation,” reproduces ragtime’s syncopated rhythms. Focusing on “non-musical
usages,” Matheson sees the title as a reference to the “rags” worn by the poor—an
interpretation supported by the emphasis in the novel on social injustice. Osten-
dorf, however, asserts the importance of the literal meaning: tracing the history of
ragtime music, he draws out the novel’s affirmation of African American cultural
contributions. Students might examine the various meanings of ragtime in the
novel, considering their relationships to one another and the ways they emphasize
or de-emphasize certain themes. Does the novel support multiple complemen-
tary meanings of ragtime, or do the various meanings negate each other? - Toward the end of Ragtime the narrator announces that “the time of the era of
Ragtime had run out, with the heavy breath of the machine, as if history were
no more than a tune on a player piano.” The description suggests the Post-
modernist idea of history as art—as a construction of the past rather than an
objective view of it. Puhr identifies another sign of a Postmodernist sensibility
in the “blurring of the... line between historical narrative and fictional narra-
tive. Doctorow accomplishes this in part by inventing details using historical
figures and also by deliberately imposing a 1970s consciousness on the events
of the first two decades of the twentieth century.” While some critics, including
Puhr, view these techniques positively, others, such as Richard Todd and Barbara
Foley, find them irresponsible. Inventions and anachronisms in the novel include
Little Boy’s request that Houdini warn the archduke about his impending assas-
sination, which will lead to World War I; Coalhouse Walker’s racial pride and
acts of violence that are reminiscent of 1960s-era Black Panthers; Freud and
Jung riding through the Tunnel of Love at Coney Island; the meeting of Nesbit
and Goldman; Ford and Morgan discussing reincarnation; and Peary’s need
for a player piano on his Arctic voyage. Examine several of the inventions or
anachronisms in Ragtime and evaluate their effect. How do they help to convey
a “subjective” rather than “objective” view of history? Do they detract from or
support the overall message of the novel? With which critics do you agree, and
why? Helpful in this study would be Doctorow’s discussions of his opposition to