Ragtime Literary Elements

Historical fiction/Postmodernism

Mostly New Rochelle, NY and New York City during the height of the ragtime era, 1900 to 1917.

Omniscient third person perspective with occasional integration of second-person plural address to the reader.

The mood varies according to events, but is always adapted to a pervasively ironic (non-satirical) tone.

Multiple in number and variable in intensity though with particular focus on Mother, Coalhouse Walker, and Tateh.

The dominant conflict of all the intersecting narratives is that between Coalhouse Walker and systemic racism.

Mother remarries to Tateh who has now become the famous filmmaker under the name Baron Ashkenazy.

Chapter 1 ends with the little boy saying “Warn the Duke.” This is a reference—before the fact—to assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand which finally ignited the long fuse leading to World War I. The ominous foreboding acts to foreshadow the multiplicity of intense dramatic events which are about to forever transform the dominant sense that America had finally attained perfection.

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The entire book is allusion either through direct involvement of historical characters or their impact upon the fictional characters’ narrative arcs.

The final use of imagery in the novel is an example of how allusion to historical fact is used as it is Tateh (as the Baron) who is credited with coming up for the idea the very popular Our Gang/Little Rascals film series: “A bunch of children who were pals, white black, fat thin, rich poor, all kinds, mischievous little urchins who would have funny adventures in their own neighborhood, a society of ragamuffins, like all of us, a gang, getting into trouble and getting out again.”

Paradox is one of the postmodern planks upon which the entire novel is constructed, but it reaches its peak with the subplot of Tateh. It is only through his constantly disappointing commitment to spreading the ideology of socialism that Tateh transforms into the Baron and ends the novel enjoying all the fruits that capitalism has to offer.

The most pervasive use of parallelism is the similarity through comparison/contrast. of Tateh. One example is the narrative trek which eventually brings the parallel narratives of Tateh and his daughter and Mother and the little boy together into a coherent whole. The other is more thematic in nature: Tate rising from rags to riches while Coalhouse Walker is first introduced already at the peak of his career and will inexorably spiral downward.

The “names” of the family at the center of the book can be viewed as an example of synecdoche in a particularly expansive way. By limiting reference to them only through their specific relation to other specific members—“Mother” instead of “Wife” for instance—this choice is highly suggestive that they should be viewed as symbolic representatives of those roles.

Coalhouse Walker’s Ford Model T transforms over the course of the narrative from a car to a possession to the personification of the complexity of misunderstandings which define and intensify the racial divide in America.