Ragtime Analysis

Ahh, the Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps. What could be more American than New York City (besides apple pie)?While Ragtime does take trips to the Arctic, Egypt, Europe and other locations in...

Doctorow gives us a God's eye view of the internal action within the characters. He zooms in and out of consciousnesses like a demented fighter pilot. We get an intimate look at Evelyn's take on he...

What was your first clue? Okay, yeah, the fact that the novel is set in the early 1900s is pretty much a dead giveaway. But there's also something special at work here, a technique that gained Doct...

Doctorow has a love-hate relationship with the passage of time. On the one hand, it plods forward: minute by minute, day by day. This matter-of-fact progression is mirrored by the straightforwardne...

The narrator is like a wise old guy who's seen it all. He doesn't embellish. He doesn't use flowery words or purple prose. He just puts it out there and describes the unfolding of history. But alon...

"Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play Ragtime fast..." Scott JoplinThe epigraph speaks to the steady, slow pace of life at the turn of the century. Ragtime takes place befoe World...

The last beefy paragraph of Ragtime details the lives of many of the characters after the era of ragtime had ended. It's a long passage—go read it—but we'll tackle the issues it raises here.Fir...

The language in Ragtime is exceedingly simple, like a story being told by a grandfather at the dinner table. And while the ideas are more complicated—centering on ideas of civil rights, socialism...

World on the VergeWe enter Ragtime's New York as the city (and the world) is poised for big changes. It's the turn of the century and society is positioned like a sprinter on the block. From the ro...

Anticipation StageJust so's you know, we're ignoring the (awesome) subplots of this novel and focusing on the tragedy of Coalhouse. We're considering his plot to be the main plot, because it's a to...

While Father is away on a voyage to the (brrr) Arctic, Mother discovers a newborn baby buried in the backyard. It's like the world's creepiest Easter egg hunt. The father of the baby, Coalhouse Wal...

Doctorow started writing Ragtime out of total desperation. Wanting to write anything, he even started writing about the wall in his house. Whoa, take it easy, E.L. Writer's block is a killer. (Sour...

Uh, you might not want to read this at your Parents N' Kidz Read Bookz book club. You might want to run screaming from the room if the idea is even suggested (both reading Ragtime and joining a boo...

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