Ragtime's Random Characters
Throughout Ragtime , there are a few historical characters with no connection to the main plot concerning the family. Some of them, like Sigmund Freud and his entourage, appear only for one chapter and do so without interacting with any of the other characters. Others, like Harry Houdini, show up in connection to the main characters once and then go on to have their own side plots that have seemingly no reason for being in the book. This begs the question: why include these characters if they have no relation to the rest of the plot? The answer is simple: they do connect to the plot. For example, while Freud may not interact directly with the main characters, his trip to America does set up a natural transition into Doctorow talking about the very big wealth division in America at this time, which is a consistent theme of Ragtime . This theme is also reinforced after the appearance of Freud by the following chapter being the one in which Ev...