It's pretty early to be making a blog post on Ragtime already, but I actually think there are several blog-worthy subtopics that were brought up in class discussion, with the most interesting one being the narrator.
Now, if you were in 20th Century Literature last semester, you'll definitely remember the term free indirect discourse--hopefully. It's basically a term that describes third person narration that moves between the consciousnesses of different characters, and fades in and out of those consciousnesses. I definitely got the vibe that a type of free indirect discourse was at play here. Looking only at that beginning paragraph, you wouldn't really see that, and the narrator actually comes off as being somewhat objective--it appears at if they're painting a picture, and are just giving the reader some good ol' facts about what it was like to live back then. However, not soon after in the chapter, we do catch some actual character insight. On page 9, after the infamous Houdini smashes into a pole and is invited in for tea, the novel reads:
"Houdini wanted to undo his collar. He felt trapped by the heavy square furnishings, the drapes and dark rugs, the Oriental silk cushions, the green glass lampshades."
I could totally see how someone could make a case for this just being a third person case for Houdini, but I just found it incredibly noticeable next to sentences that explained the inner workings and thoughts of other characters as well. There is a kind of "fading" in and out of character consciousness here.
Character thoughts aside, I think the question of whether or not the narrator is objective or not is a good one. Like I said, a lot of the information in the novel so far had been presented in a manner that implies that the narrator is neutral, and doesn't really have a... personality? Voice? There's probably a better word for what I'm thinking about, but basically, the narrator appears to be neutral. I really had to slow down my reading and think about the subtext of the "information" we're receiving. There are several examples I had in mind, but the one that sticks out the most is in the second paragraph of the book. We're introduced to Evelyn Nesbit, and her not-so-secret admirer, Mother's Younger Brother. Page 5:
"[Mother's Younger Brother] had closely followed the scandal surrounding her name and had begun to reason that the death of her lover Stanford White and the imprisonment of her husband Harry K. Thaw left her in need of the attentions of a genteel middle-class young man with no money."
This screams 'irony'. Obviously, a bachelor with no money isn't desirable at all; the narrator, at closer inspection, seems to be making a subtle tongue-in-cheek jab at Mother's Younger Brother's attitude. It was definitely funny, and I had a hard time perceiving that comment as truly neutral. There was definitely some sort of tone, and there are even more examples of this elsewhere in our text.
I'm definitely enjoying the novel so far! (At the time of this blog post, I've read up to Chapter 7, not just up to 4; I think I can safely say that I like it and will continue to do so? I hope so!) I'm totally bewildered by how the narrator just throws the reader into the context of the novel, and I don't even recognize half of the historical facets they're bringing up, but somehow it still makes sense enough for me to understand what's happening. With the rest of Ragtime in mind, I'm looking forward to it.
Hey Jazmin! Kudos for getting ahead of the game and posting early. I have (more than) a few observations about the narrator of Ragtime as well. I noticed that not only does he (assuming the gender of the narrator is aligned with the gender of the author) move between different characters' perspectives, he also moves in and out of time. Sometimes he seems closely aligned with the time period being described in the early 1900s, and sometimes there will be moments when he steps back and puts things into historical perspective by making comments like "things were different back then," implying that he is speaking from a present that is distinct from the era he is describing. However, I often forget that he's speaking from a different time period, because the descriptions in the book are so vivid that it all feels very in-the-moment. Truly the mark of a good narrator.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right that Doctorow typically engages his characters' perspectives through free indirect discourse (both historical and fictional characters)--and f.i.d. doesn't *always* yield irony (as Woolf in _Mrs. Dalloway_ doesn't depict Clarissa or Septimus in an ironic mode), it can be an extremely effective way to convey an ironic view, as it reflects both the character's own way of seeing and a degree of detachment from that view on the author/narrator's part.
ReplyDeleteOne interesting exception to this mode (which hadn't yet been introduced when you wrote this post) would be Coalhouse Walker--a crucial character in terms of the novel's plot, but one whom Doctorow does not engage via free indirect discourse. We'll want to talk about this exception in the next week's discussions.
Great blog post, Jazmin! While I was reading this, my thoughts kept getting drawn back to the discussion we had in class today about Coalhouse Walker Jr (which Mr. Mitchell referred to in his last comment). I agree with you that Doctorow uses free indirect discourse frequently in the novel, but it's interesting to look at the times when he doesn't. It seems as though Doctorow is selective about who he gets into the mind of. While he has no problem telling us all about Houdini's insecurities, and J.P. Morgan's inner thoughts and obsessions, there are some characters who we get to know only on a superficial level (Coalhouse Walker, as I mentioned, but also characters like the little girl and Emma Goldman). These characters receive a lot less of the irony that you pointed out in your post. Maybe Doctorow does this so we can see these characters in an unbiased light, and form our own opinions of them, or maybe he wants to distance himself from some provocative characters. I kind of doubt the second one is true...
ReplyDeleteSince the time you posted this, it has been interesting to see how Doctorow has used free and direct discourse to his advantage throughout the first half of this book. Almost every character mentioned, Evelyn, the Little Boy, Father, and J.P. Morgan, etc. have had their thoughts explained to the reader through Doctorow's slightly ironic tone, telling us what's going on. Take Father for example, when he's worried about the changes that have occurred in his absence to the North Pole, we are let in on exactly how he feels. I like the point you made about how narrator in Ragtime originally seemed they were painting a picture, but now we're let in on multiple perspectives. Though it'll be interesting to see where the Coalhouse Walker plotline takes us, it's like Doctorow painted a picture, then continued to layer paint on top of it. Just when we think he's ruining his original work, we find that his original painting wasn't the end product at all, just barely coloring the canvas.
ReplyDelete