Ragtime: Innitial Ideas on Plot, Tone and Overall View and Summary on the First Chapters

Initially fascinated with the much acclaimed novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow, I quickly became accustomed to the common ironic, yet not entirely sarcastic tone, and although at first glance appearing casual, it soon appeared clear that the writing style had a more detached tone that portrayed only the surface of life in America in the early 1900's without adding the emotion found in most novels. As I repeatedly tried to analyze and comprehend why the writer attempted to portray some of the horrific and tragic events in an uncaring manner, I grasped the simple fact that the author did not try to be realistic, nor attached to his writing, only taking history lightly and adding details that, although seemingly realistic, were in fact there to add to the post-modernist effect of only skimming the surface, to not explore the individual genius or historical depth.

The plot, originally, has been hard to follow thus far since unlikely events, such as Houdini suddenly meeting the New Rochelle family and the father of the family traveling to the Arctic, plague the text. This surreal world, written in a generally historically accurate world, therefore attempts to portray a general, and at times detailed, view of the American way of life at the start of the 20th century. At first, we find the New Rochelle family, with the father, the mother, the young boy and the mother's sister, who infatuates Evelyn Nesbit, why the child develops an admiration for Houdini, who crashes his car near the family's house and soon meets the family. Afterward, the father prepares for a trip to the Arctic region, his family bidding their farewells at the New Rochelle train station, and later discovering a boat transporting immigrants, to which he shows despair.

The immigrants of the vessel steadily pour into the city, where we meet an immigrant family consisting of Mameh, Tateh and a little girl, all of them employed, while Tateh is paid by her employer to partake in intercourse with him. Also, journalist Jacob Riis implores Stanford White, the renowned architect, if he believes or thinks of housing for the impoverished sections of soceity.

In a original and innovative style of piecing stories together, we return to the wealthy New Rochelle family, of which the mother's brother still obsesses about Nesbit, who herself becomes preoccupied by the fate of her husband, who had recently shot and killed Stanford White. Harry Thaw, Nesbit's husband, later becomes imprisoned pending his trial, finding Houdini in the cells while Houdini proves the facility of escaping the prison. Furthermore, Sigmund Freud has recently arrived to America in chapter six, viewed by most of his academic peers as revolutionary and radical, yet with unethical ideas about the human mind.

Throughout the first six chapters, the tendency of the style of writing appears detached and in many obvious points, somewhat emotionless, even in the places where any reasonable reader, when presented with many facts mentioned in the writing, would be appalled. Personally, I see the care-free style of writing used as necessary at times, yet this tone does not work uniformly for various and obvious reasons. Such examples include the paragraphs describing the tragic fate of various workers and the lower socioeconomic classes and people, where Doctorow jokingly writes that the industrial capitalist factory owners used children as "happy, little elves" who would gladly work for next to nothing in horrendous conditions, casually claiming the quotas as commonplace.