The All-American Atonist Road Trip

When I was reading Mumbo Jumbo, for some reason I noticed a passage where PaPa LaBas and Black Herman are discussing the American invasion of Haiti. From there, they go into a minor rant about all the highways the invaders built. The Atonists are never satisfied with the way things are, and instead they always want to improve, or to get somewhere new. There are some interesting parallels between this and modern American society. Before reading this section, I wouldn't have associated travel, specifically high-speed travel, with Atonism in particular. However, it makes a lot of sense. According to Black Herman, Americans love to drive places as fast as they can because "something is after them" − themselves. This reminds me of all the times I've screwed something up and had the urge to get away, or stay distracted because it's easier than facing the problem. High-speed highways make an entire system out of getting away as fast as you can, as far as you can.

Highways are also a really good representation of Atonist thought because they represent the kind of organization and technological prowess that the Atonists prize. In order to have a highway system, there needs to be a strong central government (think back to Mr. Butler's class, guys) that has a lot of control. It requires a lot of efficient, organized workers and oversight. Often, nature gets destroyed when highways are built − builders cut into rock faces, cut down trees, grass is replaced with asphalt, etc. Highways disrupt the natural features of the land and replace it with artificial gray lines.

                Highway travel also shows the Atonist obsession with efficiency. If you're, say, walking somewhere, then you can wander around or stop at any point. You have more time to enjoy what's around you. If you're traveling at 75 mph on the highway, you just have to keep going in a straight line until you get to your destination. You're closed off from nature and the other drivers around you. If you're on a highway and the next exit is in 100 miles, there's no room for spontaneity; you're just stuck in one mode until you get there.

Doctorow's Narration

              We've talked about how Doctorow interferes in the lives of his characters, and we've talked about how the omnipotent narrator of Ragtime is like a character in his own right. However, this varies a lot in different sections of the book.  In the first few chapters, the characters seem to be wholly under the control of the author. At first, they follow preset patterns, which fit expectations that we (the readers) may have. For example, we get the stereotypical nuclear family of Mother, Father, and the little boy, who all fulfill the traditional roles of a turn-of-the century family. The narrator chooses to go broad rather than deep, describing the world of the book from afar in order to give the readers the feeling of "this is what this era was like". After that, Doctorow zooms in a little further: he describes the lives of individuals briefly, before moving on to another person when they enter the story. It feels as if Doctorow is taking a video camera and filming a scene through the window of Tateh's apartment, and then briefly moving on to Jacob Riis, and Theodore Dreiser, and Stanford White/Harry Thaw. We don't get to see deeply into characters' heads at this point, which makes them feel more like Doctorow's puppets than actual people. Also, at the beginning there are some improbable coincidences (such as Houdini crashing in front of the family's house) that just serve as obvious excuses for Doctorow to do whatever he wants with his characters. 

                    As the book goes on, however, the characters develop more of a life of their own. In the beginning, Doctorow set up generalized depictions of various classes of American life. Now, the characters begin to display the free will necessary to break out of those molds. For example, after Father leaves for the Arctic Mother begins to resemble less and less the "ideal 1800s housewife" and more of her true personality shows through. Tateh becomes a more complex character than just the "struggling immigrant" type. Coalhouse Walker defies all expectations of "normal black behavior" when he begins killing firemen and setting fire to buildings in his quest for justice, while still maintaining his air of calm intelligence. Doctorow's narration reflects these changes: more time is spent inside the characters' heads and we can often forget the existence of the narrator. It becomes a story of people doing things, instead of a story of Doctorow telling us about people doing things. It stops jumping around as much, forming longer and more coherent threads. Arguably, Doctorow's use of irony becomes less frequent. It's still there, but only in little asides when there's a break in the action.

                  Interestingly, the very end of the book returns to the style of the beginning. The last chapter frustrated me at first because so many loose ends are conveniently wrapped up. After all of Younger Brother's character development, all we get is a brief section about him somehow traveling to Mexico and then dying, with almost no importance attached to his death. Father dies in a ridiculous coincidence involving the Lusitania, so Mother and Tateh can get married and live happily ever after. All of this is narrated in the same detached style as the beginning of the book, with no insight into the characters' heads. It's like the characters of Ragtime briefly developed lives of their own, and then faded back into the fictional realm they came from. Looking at it like this, it makes sense why Doctorow would add the quote, "...by that time the era of Ragtime had run out, with the heavy breath of the machine, as if history were no more than a tune on a player piano."