Ragtime Essay

Out of the essays that I have written for English, this one took me the longest. I had "writer's block" and could not compose a great essay. So not only did it take me the longest amount of time, it is probably one of my worst.

Without further ado

Ragtime is a story that takes place in the early 1900’s, and follows the story of many different people. By the end of the book, the life (and death) of all the people tie in together. The book uses many different themes, one of which is black rights. Many of the characters in the book are black, and most of them become civil rights activists. One of them, Coalhouse Walker, becomes more violent then the others. Coalhouse experiences an epiphany, when he is discriminated at a volunteer fire station, changing his life forever.

Coalhouse is a simple piano player, but his life took a radical turnaround when volunteer fireman bar his path on the street he is on. He is required to pay a fee to drive on the road. It infuriated him when he saw a white driver pass without being charged; at that moment, he decided that something should be done. He blatantly refused to pay the toll, and when the fireman didn’t move, he ran to the police. At their refusal to help, he went back to his car defeated, only to find his car had been wrecked by the firefighters.

The incident is a symbol for black rights all across America at the time of the early 1900’s. It proves that even though the civil war was over for about 40 years, incidents were still occurring (even in the Union States). This particular event of racism changed Coalhouse’s life forever. He wanted a lawyer, but no one would take his case. Alone in the legal world, he had nowhere to turn. He decided to take violent actions, and he began to cause terror on the city, one such act, was threatening to bomb J.P Morgan’s library. Most people thought he went too far, that his ideas were too extreme, even Booker T. Washington, famous Black civil rights activist, tried to stop him. Eventually Coalhouse was shot, for (according to police) attempting to escape.

From the point where Coalhouse went to the firehouse, all the characters came together. Each character is now fully developed, and the story begins to come together into a climatic ending. This event changes the story’s theme of family, to a story where the characters meet the bigger community of the world.

Before the fire station incident, the story followed Coalhouse, and his love and relationship with Sarah. It was also about the narrator’s family (Mother, Father, Mother’s Younger Brother, ect.), and their relationship with Sarah and Coalhouse. But after the incident, the story turns to the community. Mother moves abroad and meets Tateh, Coalhouse goes into the city as a terrorist, rather than a musician, and Sarah moves to help Coalhouse, and is killed in the process.

The significance of Coalhouse’s story was to show, just how devastating racism was. Doctorow wrote about a character that is at such inner peace with himself. A man that is polite and extremely caring. But one event changed that man into an extreme radical that could be titled, a terrorist.

The author, E.L. Docotrow, makes the reader emotional, by killing, not only Coalhouse but also Mother’s Younger Brother, who died indirectly because of the death of Coalhouse. This gives the story a certain tone, a gloom, that pulls the reader in. The characters grasp the reader, so that if a character dies, the reader cares and is affected by his death, giving the story a certain resolution.

Without the scene at the firehouse, the story would have had no backbone. The book would not have been as meaningful, because everything that precedes the incident was centered on that scene.