Narrator in Ragtime
What does the narrator think? How does doctorow express his views on historical events with his formation of the narrator? These are some of the questions that I wish to answer with this blog. The character of the narrator was one of the most intriguing and interesting elements of the book to me; the layers of irony were at times annoying, but definitely satisfying to peel back and examine.
First I'll look at chapter one of the book, specifically the first paragraph in which Doctorow boldly exerts his striking writing style and throws an avalanche of stuff at the reader. Just the first paragraph of this book deserves a long and thorough blog post, but for this blog I’ll focus on the narrator element and keep it brief. Doctorow starts by describing the family’s house, then the season, the culture of the early 1900’s, the entertainment scene, a few of the family members, a description of the Evelyn Nesbit’s scandal and those involved in it, and a confession from the narrator. For about the first 7 lines, the narrator appears as an objective and clear storyteller describing the fictional lead family of the book. “It was a three-story brown shingle with dormers, bay windows and a screened porch … The best part of Father’s income was derived from the manufacture of flags and buntings and other accouterments of patriotism, including fireworks”.
With only the first 7 lines, we see the narrator as an omniscient and straight to the point storyteller. Suddenly, a few curveballs are thrown at the reader: “Patriotism was a reliable sentiment in the early 1900’s”, the narrator describes the great social entertainment at the time, “Everyone wore white in the summer”, “There were no Negroes. There were no immigrants.” Was patriotism really a reliable sentiment in the early 1900’s? Why is he describing only the public outings and entertainment culture? There were no Negroes?? There were no immigrants??? The narrator switches from objective and unbiased to a naive upper class white person in the blink of an eye. Doctorow’s use of irony reveals his real distaste for a multitude of groups in this paragraph, and he recycles this method plenty throughout the book. His use of irony is not solely for revealing perspectives on history, but largely for messing with the reader’s expectations and giving them a good laugh. “Across America sex and death were barely distinguishable”, “Apparently there were Negroes. There were immigrants”, and many other parts of the first paragraph appear to serve the sole purpose of having fun.
The narrator’s irony or lack thereof when describing certain situations or people gives great clues to what Doctorow’s real judgments are. He gives a great deal of humiliation to characters such as Father, MYB, Morgan, and many others through giving great satires of their respective groups that they represent. Father represents an old white upper class guy in New York in the 1900’s, and many of the things he does and ways he acts are clear criticisms of this group. Doctorow’s descriptions of Father’s racist behaviors and thoughts demean his character significantly, such as Father's interactions and thoughts about the Eskimos and the treatment of Coalhouse. While these descriptions are laced heavily with irony, when he gets to characters such as Emma Goldman or Tateh, he seems to treat them with great respect. Emma Goldman’s thoughts are much more historically based than other characters’ such as Ford’s or Freud’s. The irony and historical fantasy usually go hand in hand, but not always and the irony level isn’t clear. In closing I think Doctorow’s ironic treatment of selected characters quite effectively forms a critical lens on racist, greedy, and naive groups of the early 1900’s.
Your blog picks apart the narrator's irony in Ragtime really well, showing how Doctorow uses it to critique early 1900s society. After reading the novel and then this post, I wonder if this irony also hints at Doctorow questioning how we tell history. By mixing fact with fiction and changing tones, he seems to say that history's "truth" often depends on who's telling it. This could be Doctorow's way of nudging us to think more critically about the stories we accept as true, especially those that leave out or misrepresent less dominant voices.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you, the way Doctorow messes with certain characters while giving others respect offers some of Doctorows ideas on social/economic issues in the past. Also this is kind of unrelated but wouldn't it seem like the narrator of the story is the little boy? The tone used when the story is focused on the boy shifts which seems to imply that this novel is narrated by him maybe at an older age. Thats not really related, just something to think about. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree that we often can get a pretty good picture of what Doctorow's views on some of this material must be--the irony often seems satirical and "pointed" in this way, and it just takes a while to orient to this odd perspective (so at first a reader might be outraged or offended by the "there were no immigrants" line for being so self-evidently dumb, but later realize that the joke is on the complacent white-middle-class citizens of New Rochelle whose views are being challenged). And I agree that the author is clearly interested in class conflict and wealth inequality, and he sure doesn't seem to side with Morgan on that one.
ReplyDeleteBut at other points the ambiguity and irony remains: it's not easy to tell the author's views on MYB and his participation in Coalhouse's movement, for example. The provocative blackface costume he adopts could be either/both the author completely torching him with irony (he is taking on this cause as if he's wearing a mask or putting on makeup), AND/OR he is showing that MYB and the others share a sense of "irony," and the other members of the gang think it's funny when the papers report that the attack on the firehouse was from an all-Black group of attackers. So the offensive/ironic costume ALSO works as a useful disguise to ensure that MYB is never suspected, so he can continue to supply them with explosives.
Your analysis is pretty spot on. It's clear that characters like Father and MYB become targets for criticism through ironic depictions of their behaviors, while figures like Emma Goldman receive more respectful treatment. The interplay of historical fantasy and irony prompts readers to question the accuracy of historical narratives and consider deeper truths. Your post plays on this idea well, citing Doctorow's juxtaposition of fact and fiction as a way to keep readers on their toes when taking in the information presented to them.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that doctorow's irony is pretty much exclusively used to mock characters for their beliefs or their circumstances. I think that especially with ford and morgan it's partly being used to attack gilded age capitalism and just going after them because they were elites. I also agree that it's interesting how with some characters like Tateh and emma goldman the irony is almost entirely gone, and it makes it pretty clear which characters doctorow actually agrees with.
ReplyDeleteDoctorow's distinct writing style was easily one of the most interesting things about this book to me. I agree with a lot of your ideas about this, but I also think one of the best things about this style was that it made the book more fun to read. It really made you question what Doctorow's motive was, along with what was actually being portrayed in the moment. A writing style used to such success to capture an author's agenda was something that I hadn't really seen before, and it was intriguing to see it used to such success in this novel.
ReplyDeleteI really like your blog, and particularly enjoy the idea of doctorow throwing an avalanche of stuff at the reader. I hadn't really thought about it, but i definitely agree that he goes for it and it's incredibly striking how he does it. i also really appreciate your observation of the narrator as an upper-class white person who's just completely unaware, though i wonder if that person is aware but intentionally chooses to deny, if that makes sense. i imagine the upper class white non-immigrant person at the time to understand that there were lots of other people in the world but ignore them in favor of their richer, more priveleged lives.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the whole irony of this postmodernist historical fiction is in questioning the thoughts of the narrator; the idea of history being "flimsy" or "constructed" is especially apparent if we read Ragtime as if it were a textbook. In considering Doctorow, would we not be questioning the authority of those who write the "real" and "valid" history books? To this point, I think that Doctorow succeeds in accomplishing what his overarching goal might be with this book: to think less about the content of the book and more of how the content of the book is being told, and by extension, how media/information is presented as a whole. In this view, I think that whatever opinions Doctorow/narrator might hold are moot.
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