Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Fascinated, Matter-of-fact
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 straightforwardness of Ragtime. People do things. People marry, have sex, have babies, murder other people, and fly aeroplanes.
But now and then, all these commonplace actions add up to something marvelous and wonderful—an amazing coincidence, a twist of fate, a stunning admission, or just... history being fascinating. Doctorow doesn't seem to delve too deeply into any one character's lives or mind. But he shows their feelings and how those feelings motivate their actions, and in doing that, shows how our actions and interactions create the time we live in.
Everyone plays a part in history, even if they don't recognize it. When the night guard is outside the Morgan library during Coalhouse's siege, lying on top of a roof, and can feel everyone around him:
"He lay in the rain on guard and felt, though he could not see, the presence of thousands of quietly watchful New Yorkers. During the night he thought they made a sound, some barely detectable mourning sound, not more than an exhalation, not louder than the mist of fine rain." (37.4)
This passage combines the straightforward, matter of fact tone that defines Ragtime—yup, there are indeed tons of New Yorkers milling around New York at any given moment—and a definite sense of awe. Because what is more awe-inspiring than being surrounded by a teeming metropolitan area, where millions of people manage to coexist… even if they coexist a little dysfunctionally.