In the last few chapters of Ragtime, we come across the ends of many characters, half of which are the revolutionists like Younger Brother and Coalhouse Walker. On the one hand, a reader can simply look at these deaths and say that Doctorow is following his characters to the end, after all, he is bringing the "era of ragtime" to an end. But I cannot help but think that maybe Doctorow is making a statement. In a way, the causes that Coalhouse and Younger Brother fought for were quite noble ones, regardless of the way they fought for them. But the truth is, their fighting for the causes didn't do much on a large scale. Coalhouse ends up surrendering and getting shot. He dies, life moves on. End of that story. Younger Brother moves to Mexico. We don't even know exactly how he died. So in a way, the revolutionists die off without making significant changes on society.
This idea of the revolutionists just dying off gives off the sense that the society for which Ragtime takes place in doesn't change [drastically] itself, and that those who try to change society, fail (at least within the era of the book. Coalhouse would have totally made a statement had he lived at a later time). If you think about it, Tateh was also a revolutionist at the beginning and middle of the book. But later in the book Tateh gives up strikes and goes into movie making, making him the very successful Baron. It's not that Tateh switches sides and joins the capitalists, he (in a way) gives into society and decides to focus more on himself and his family, like most ambivalent middle-class men do. Houdini, although thought of like a circus freak, pulls off a stunt and has to go slower so that it looks believable to the people. Harry K Thaw gets out of jail and joins the parade, for him being more upper-class means he basically gets what he wants. By the end of the book, so many characters have simply given into society. To generalize, the only characters to survive are those who just focus on their individual lives instead of the injustices of society.
Add to your roster of failed or frustrated or dead revolutionaries in the novel Emma Goldman, who has been deported by the end of the novel (as indeed she was in real life). Of course, she continued to foment revolution throughout Europe for the rest of her life--hardcore to the end--but her brand of radicalism was increasingly unwelcome on American shores. The fact of her deportation might shade the way we see the "failed revolutions" in the novel: she didn't "fail" because her ideas were unsound or unpopular. To the contrary, her popularity (evident in the crowds we see her addressing, and the police attention that comes with it) was seen by the govt. as a serious threat--serious enough that she had to be removed from this country's shores altogether. A skeptic might say that this isn't exactly a "fair fight": if traditional capitalist/American ideals are so unimpeachably great, why does the critic have to be swept from the country? Can't the establishment withstand a little constructive criticism from within? Whatever happened to free speech? So the failure of the revolutions isn't necessarily a referendum on their justness. I still think Doctorow sympathizes with Red Emma.
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