Doctorow's use of intertextuality, his mix of historical and fictional characters, and his rewriting of the narrator and the characters' identities all point to how reality and history are not fixed notions and they are rewritten and recreated continuously. Historiographic metafiction is a genre of literature in which authors call into question the reliability of history through the literary devices of metafiction. These novels blur the line between history and fiction based on the idea that history is constantly being written and rewritten through the subjective point of view of different historians. Each historian must use their imagination to construct a history based on previous texts which were also imagined by historians, with each new history becoming more fictional than the last. Historiographic metafiction is distinguished from historical fiction in that the former is characterized by a distrust for history. Historiographic metafiction also includes allusions to other "artistic, historical, and literary texts (i.e. intertextuality) in order to show the extent to which" both literature and history are dependent on discussion. An example of this in Ragtime would be the rewritten identity of America that Doctorow presents from the beginning to the end of the book. In the first chapter of the novel, Doctorow writes that "there were no Negroes. There were no immigrants." However, this contrasts with the American family we see in the last chapter of the novel. Mother adopts a Latvian immigrant girl and an African American boy in a nation that supposedly did not have any black people or immigrants. Doctorow creates an unrealistic historical image of America dealing with issues of racial purity, national identity, unity, and prosperity that he then deconstructs. Below is an incredible essay on Ragtime and the genre of historiographic metafiction by English professor at Oklahoma State University, Paula Anca Farca:
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Ragtime begins by describing the patriotism in America at the turn of the century while Teddy Roosevelt was president. Roosevelt became the 26th president of the United States after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. He served two terms, leaving office in March of 1909. He was succeeded in office by William Howard Taft.
Trust regulation A trust is a large business with significant market power, sometimes used to refer to monopolies in the United States during the Second Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. When Roosevelt took office, he began to sympathize with the public concern over monopolies on business created by the super wealthy. His domestic policy included more populist acts such as support of organized labor unions to curb the power of trusts. He became known as the "trust-buster" using the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act to bring 44 antitrust suits. He "busted" the Northern Securities Company which had a monopoly on American railroads and Standard Oil, the largest oil and refinery company. He also created the United States Department of Commerce and Labor. For big businessmen such as J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford, Roosevelt's policy must have seemed threatening. Coal strike of 1902 In eastern Pennsylvania, anthracite coal miners went on strike for higher wages, shorter workdays, and recognition of their union, the United Mine Workers of America. The strike threatened to shut down the winer fuel supply to major US cities. Roosevelt created a fact-finding commission that suspended the strike. It was never reopened; together with J.P. Morgan, Roosevelt crafted an accord in which the miners received a 10% wage increase and reduced work days from ten to nine hours, but the union was not recognized. This was the first labor dispute in which the US government involved itself as a neutral arbitrator. Executive orders Roosevelt became the first president to issue more than 1,000 executive orders, more than the first 25 presidents combined. He is infamous for extending the reach of his presidential office, even attempting to make changes to the official rules of football. His executive orders largely focused on environmental conservation, an issue which he believed was one of the most important of his time. Coincidentally this was the time in our history when the morose novelist Theodore Dreiser was suffering terribly from the bad reviews and negligible sales of his first book, Sister Carrie. Dreiser was out of work, broke and too ashamed to see anyone...He took to sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of the room. One day he decided his chair was facing in the wrong direction. Raising his weight from the chair, he lifted it with his two hands and turned it to the right, to align it properly. For a moment he thought the chair was aligned, but then he decided it was not. He moved it another turn to the right. He tried sitting in the chair now but it still felt peculiar. He turned it again. Eventually he made a complete circle and still he could not find the proper alignment for the chair...Through the night Dreiser turned his chair in circles seeking the proper alignment. Theodore Dreiser was born in 1871 in Terra Haute, India, the ninth of ten surviving children. His father had emigrated from Germany in 1844 and moved to the midwest with many other German immigrants. Dreiser's father became a moderately successful wool dealer and even became proprietor of a wool mill in Indiana. In 1869, however, fire struck the Dreiser mill and left his father with a crippling injury and the family with plaguing economic instability. Because of this accident, Theodore had few education opportunities in his troubled childhood. He never finished high school and dropped out of college after just a year. Despite his strict Roman Catholic upbringing, he later became an atheist.
Dreiser first worked as a journalist but found fame as a naturalist novelist. Naturalism is an art movement reaching its height at the turn of the century that did not believe in the existence of free will in enacting change in your life's circumstances. Despite the pessimism of the Naturalist movement, Naturalists were active in improving the conditions of the poor in America. Naturalists are simultaneously accused of being ethnocentric, painting stubbornly unflattering pictures of immigrants and the poor. Dreiser's first novel Sister Carrie has been called the "greatest of all American urban novels". It tells the story of a young girl who, after leaving her rural community for Chicago, struggles with poverty, prostitution, and complex relationships with me. She becomes a famous yet dissatisfied actress. It received poor critical reception due to moral objections to sordid relationships with men as a way to rise to fame. Despite the lack of recognition in Dreiser's lifetime, Sister Carrie has gained enormous fame since its publication in 1900. After the release of Sister Carrie, Dreiser suffered a mental breakdown as described by Doctorow in Ragtime. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930. He died in 1945 at age 74. Coon songs are meant for minstrel shows. White men sing them in black face. This is called ragtime. Ragtime, like jazz, is a musical genre that is hard to define. The most agreed upon definition according to the Library of Congress is "a genre of musical composition for the piano, generally in duple meter and containing a highly syncopated treble lead over a rhythmically steady bass. A ragtime composition is usually composed of three or four contrasting sections or strains, each one being 16 or 32 measures in length." Some also observe that ragtime is often composed for an audience, not meant for dancing, unlike "coon songs" or cakewalks, other syncopated music seen in minstrel shows of the time. While cakewalks were often written in 2/4 or 6/8 meter, ragtime was only in duple meter. This led to "smaller and more gyrating dance steps", like animal dances such as the grizzly bear, bunny hug, turkey trot, and more.
The term "ragtime" is a contraction for "ragged time", describing a style of music in which the melody is broken up into short rhythms while a steady overall beat is played. This name predates the premier ragtime musicians of the day, such as Scott Joplin, Charles Hunter, or Tom Turpin. The origin of the syncopated beat that is so common in ragtime music is thought to be a surviving influence of African drumming and slave spirituals. Ragtime music found its heart in Missouri, specifically St. Louis because of the city's position on the river. Black entrepreneurs prospered in St. Louis, such as John L. Turpin who opened a saloon in 1887. Turpin's son, Tom, opened his own saloon in 1897; the same year, Tom composed "Harlem Rag" which became a ragtime standard that inspired future composers. Using the money earned from "Harlem Rag", Tom opened another saloon and brothel called Rosebud which became a destination for ragtime pianists hoping to learn from Tom Turpin himself. The pioneer spirit of Missouri combined with the constant flow of visitors to the riverside city made Missouri and Rosebud the capital of ragtime. Because ragtime required such technical skill to play, "classic rags" were often not bestsellers. A less subtle, more popular form of ragtime music filled vaudeville houses, music boxes, and piano-playing contests across the country. Critics looked down upon this overwhelming popularity; ragtime was called 'unmusical rot' by the American Federation of Musicians, 'virulent poison' by music magazine The Etude, and 'sacrilege' by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. As jazz gained popularity around 1917, ragtime faded from the popular ear. A musical style that had defined an era became largely forgotten. The technical aspects of ragtime piano remained influential through 1920, creating its own genre called "novelty piano" or "novelty ragtime" by today's scholars. Find examples of ragtime music under Videos. Thank you to this page from the Library of Congress for helping me make sense of the musical lingo! Head here for a more detailed history of ragtime music. |
Dramaturgy for the Ragtime musical and novel.© Eliza Pillsbury, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eliza Pillsbury with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Categories
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