Lara's English Class Blog

 Although I enjoyed many of the characters in Ragtime, Mother stood out to me as an exceptionally written character. Ragtime takes place at the turn of the 20th century and a big theme of the time -- and, of course, the book -- is the idea of change. Doctorow hits on various key societal changes through many characters: we see Emma Goldman publicly trying to fight for a better society, Younger Brother joins Coalhouse and later goes to Mexico to continue his fight for justice, and Coalhouse himself is a good example of a fight for racial changes. The list goes on, but the character who I'd most like to focus on is Mother. Throughout the book, Mother's personality goes through major changes and, by the end, she discovers an entirely new existence for herself. Unlike Father, who is unable to keep up with the changes around him and eventually becomes depressed, Mother thrives in her new environment. During Father's excursion to the North Pole, Mother becomes self-reliant. She ...

 Up until this point in the book, Doctorow has hit on a lot of themes that have interwoven through multiple characters, but I think the most striking to me is each characters' quest for meaning. With each person, we've seen an internal struggle, whether explicit or implicit, to discover themselves. The first clear example to me is Evelyn. Doctorow spends much of the first part of the book focusing on her character -- especially in relation to Tateh and The Little Girl. In class, we discussed whether we thought that Evelyn had good intentions during her interactions with Tateh or if she was being selfish. In my opinion, Evelyn's acts, though debately in poor taste, were good intentioned. Throughout her life, Evelyn was viewed as a sexual object rather than a person. She was manipulated by Thaw and White from an early age and forced to make a name for herself using her sexual appeal. Her entire life resides under the public eye and she is constantly being scrutinized, but whe...