Wednesday, February 5, 2014
A Slight Disappointment
Having read the ending of Ragtime, I was very disappointed. I thought it was hastily put together, especially since only two of the male characters were alive by the end. I've heard the saying, "one death is tragic, 100 deaths is a statistic". While there weren't 100 male characters that died, most of the men still died and to me, it seemed less significant. The ending also reminded me of how I used to end short story assignments. I wouldn't know what else to do with the characters so I just killed them off. I could understand Coalhouse being killed since he did break the law repeatedly and was in a building surrounded by cops. If Coalhouse hadn't been killed I would have been surprised. However, Younger Brother and Father dying seemed completely random. It felt like their deaths were only for the purpose of helping Tateh. Younger Borther's death helped deteriorate Father and Mother's marriage and Father's death allowed for Tateh to marry mother. The whole situation with Father being on dying was also very convenient after Tateh was shown taking an interest in Mother. Overall, I disliked that Doctorow killed off most of the male characters because to me, it seemed like he had given up trying to figure out what to do with them and sentenced them to death.
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In terms of the novel's main themes, I don't see the deaths of Younger Brother and Father as being all that "random." They both diverge from the family's original business--of supplying explosive and red-white-and-blue paraphernalia for patriotic celebration--toward a more active role in politics (Father by smuggling explosives to aid the war effort, before the US's official involvement; Brother by smuggling his own expertise in "blowing stuff up" to the Mexican Revolution). Their paths diverge in parallel but opposite ways here, and there is this sense that, with their contrasting ideologies (brought home in the scene in Morgan's library), they both sort of disappear into the flow of history. They do manage to "free" Mother to pursue a new identity as Tateh's wife, so on that level there is a simple plot function. But in terms of the novel's larger portrait of the US at this point in history, I do see significance in these divergent paths.
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