In Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow does not depict an especially friendly world. The poor are walked all over by the rich, the poor who have become rich suffer from self-esteem issues, and the people who actually are rich are colossal jerks who don't seem to even enjoy themselves. Attempts of more privileged people to "help" less fortunate people are undermined by Doctorow and we are supposed to see them as either grossly patronizing like the poverty balls (and potentially even Houdini visiting the construction worker?) or else a form of escapism like Evelyn slumming.
It would be easy to read Ragtime and see Doctorow as giving a very pessimistic view of the early twentieth century and human . However, that's not exactly true. As much as we see police brutality and abuse of power, there are numerous random acts of kindness that come from less privileged people. When Tateh and the little girl flee from New York they first get on a trolley with crates of milk. Tateh tries to buy one but the man in charge of collecting the money refuses his payment. Families offer to take in children of striking workers in Lawrence. Tateh himself perhaps saves a woman from getting trampled by dragging her to a bench after she has been beaten. Just minutes later Tateh is attended to by a doctor who happened to be on the train.
The most impressive random act of kindness comes from Mother, who is not exactly poor but is still less privileged due to her gender. She finds the baby buried in her garden and is, amazingly, not repulsed or disparaging towards the mother but tries to understand. What is so impressive about her deciding to take in the mother and baby is that she knows it will be a long term commitment. She will have to deal with the race/class issues, the added burden to the household, the blow to the family's reputation, and general inconveniences not only that once but for an unspecified amount of time.
These patterns suggest that Doctorow believes the famous and wealthy did not perform these kindnesses. None of the historical characters in the novel are portrayed unironically as performing a kind act like these. The closest might be Emma Goldman nursing Evelyn Nesbett back to health, but this doesn't really have the sense of it being a random act of kindness. Goldman is interested in Nesbett more because she is so famous rather than out of a more basic feeling empathy. I'm not denying that Goldman feels empathy, but she is primarily interested in Nesbett due to the fame.
It would be interesting to see Doctorow right about a different era to see if he thinks this is the case in all times or just in the Gilded Age.
And Goldman doesn't quite fit the profile of wealthy and famous: she is famous (or infamous/notorious), but for very different reasons than the other famous characters (esp. Nesbit). She is famous as someone who challenges the status quo relentlessly, and she isn't wealthy at all. What she has to offer Evelyn is a new way of understanding herself and her life--and we could debate whether there's a "selfish" aspect in spreading one's beliefs. But I see her effort to "free" Evelyn as an act of kindness and compassion. Yes, it does eventually result in Evelyn offering (anonymous) financial support, but there's no indication that Goldman's motives are at all influenced by this possibility. She "uses" Evelyn's presence at her speech to make a point, but once they're (ostensibly) alone in the room together, we see a private rather than public interaction.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I was trying to say is that Evelyn's fame kind of takes the randomness and off-the-cuff quality out of what Goldman does. She knows the identity of the person she is helping, and that somehow makes it less impressive than Mother who just takes in the girl and the baby.
DeleteDoctorow actually has written about time periods other than the so-called Gilded Age. A quick visit to his Wikipedia page reveals a list of his works - the only novel whose plot is mentioned is that of The Book of Daniel, which is about the infamous Rosenberg affair that took place during the beginning of the Cold War. A brief Google search for "e l doctorow historical fiction" seems to suggest that the majority of his novels are classified as historical fiction. It'd be interesting to see, as you said, how he views respectability along class lines in other time periods.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, in conducting the tiny amount of research needed for this comment, I was surprised to discover that Doctorow, now 83 years old, is still active as an author. His most recent book, Andrew's Brain, came out just last week.
I should have thought to mention this in class. Yes--Doctorow's newest book was reviewed on the cover of the NY Times Book Review the very week we started Ragtime. I love it when coincidences like this happen (as when Nicholson Baker appeared on Colbert right after we'd finished his novel last semester).
DeleteOh, and I strongly recommend _The Book of Daniel_--both as an interesting "postmodernist" historical novel that is quite different than _Ragtime_, and which gets at issues similar to those raised by Younger Brother and Emma Goldman (the focal character is the now-adult son of the Rosenbergs, recalling his parents being arrested, tried, and executed as he explores his own complex relation to radical politics in the 1960s, his era). It's much less ironic than _Ragtime_, and it frankly blew me away emotionally, and made me very angry at the US government.