Were Mother, Tateh, and the kids the only ones who "deserved" to survive the book?
The short answer is obviously no.
For a longer answer, Mother, Tateh, and the kids weren't the only ones who "deserved" to survive because not only do I not think I'm in a position to be handing out death sentences, but also even in a literary context there are other characters who didn't do anything wrong enough to be justified in being killed off. The first one of these characters is Sarah, who I don't think anyone could make an argument for why she could possibly have deserved to die, except maybe the fact that she almost killed her baby by burying it alive, but we don't know that it was her that did that. Maybe someone stole her baby and buried it, and even if it was her, she doesn't do anything after her introduction to us that would warrant a literary death. Even the way she eventually dies is really unfair to her, since she was just trying to help Coalhouse in the biggest way she thought she could and ended up being mistaken for an assassin and getting fatally injured. (Un)Fortunately, Sarah's death does drive the plot of the rest of the book, seeing as it sends Coalhouse into his plan of declaring the Provisional American Government, so her not surviving the book is a necessary component, even if it isn't justified. But even with all this injustice for Sarah, in a way she does survive the book because after her death Mother inherits some of her characteristics and then survives, so maybe there is justice for Sarah after all.
The second character who doesn't necessarily "deserve" to die was Father. While Father is obviously racist and stuck in the 19th century, he doesn't really do anything that justifies his death at sea on the Lusitania except for the fact that his possession of futuristic weapons could not be allowed by the flow of history to survive, so again we have a character whose death was sadly necessary. Father also was a relic of the 19th century, so Doctorow just couldn't let his survive into the modern era, which is often defined by WWI. Father's death doesn't have quite the same sense of injustice as Sarah's, but Father also half survives the book because of the emergence of a new "Father" in Tateh, who marries Mother and becomes a better father to the kids than Father was.
While Sarah and Father are the two main deaths that I feel were a bit unjustified, there are arguments to be made about whether or not characters like Coalhouse or "Mother's Younger Brother" deserved to die. On one hand, Coalhouse's crusade against injustice is a noble one, but on the other hand him and Mother's Younger Brother end up killing innocent people when they destroy the fire stations. This puts them in the category of people whose deaths are justified for me, even if they had a noble cause. This leaves us with only two people who died unjustly, but even those people's deaths were significant to the plot or were deemed necessary by the flow of history, which means that Ragtime, with it's themes of injustice, is ironically a pretty just book.
Maybe the reason why Doctorow killed them off was because they wouldn't have a "happily ever after" ending otherwise, and this way he is able to close off the book in a satisfying way (think about it, Tateh and Mother get married, and basically everyone else dies). I definitely agree with all your points, great post!
ReplyDeleteWhen we're talking about fictional characters, the ethics of "killing them off" are obviously quite different than in real life--no one would be talking about an actual man in Father's position "deserving to die" because they are not quite modern enough. But in a novel, where the author is so aware of history and the movement of a historical period, there is a sense in which Father's 19th century sensibilities seem increasingly out of step with the encroachment of modernity, and many scholars mark the onset of modernity with the start of WWI. So in this light Father's death is very symbolic, occurring at the very moment (more or less) when the US enters the war. You make a grear point about the metafictional aspect of Doctorow's need to "kill off" Father--if he were able to deliver his rocket-propelled grenade launchers to England, it would create some real messiness w/r/t to the historical record. (As we'll see, Ishmael Reed is not nearly so concerned about coherence in this way.)
ReplyDeleteI think Doctorow was also trying to make a point with who he allowed to survive and who he killed off, at least at the end of the book (Sarah was just a necessary death to progress the plot, like you said). But at the end, it's significant that only Tateh and Mother survive. Maybe other characters deserved to live, but ultimately, Doctorow is the one manipulating the story, and I think he wanted to send a message with Tateh and Mother living on - happily, even! They successfully modernized in a way that keeps them within the bounds of acceptability and compatibility with the rest of society.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you talked about characters' deaths both from a plot and justice perspective. It was also interesting how you described how Sarah and Father both kind of lived on. Since this book feels kind of like taking a random slice out of the flow of history, it does make the characters seem like they continue to serve a purpose beyond their deaths.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I definitely agree with your decisions on who had an undeserved death, but it's hard for me to interpret Doctorow's intended meaning for their deaths. On the one hand, the book's tone is very straight forward, and on the surface level, doesn't attempt to make huge symbolic statements or connections. However, I think that Doctorow's decisions on which characters he killed and when were intentional to, like with Sarah, further the plot, or like with Father's death, make a statement about the time period and the said character's relationship to it. I will say though that I don't think Doctorow based the fates of his characters on justice. Really interesting post!
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