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Chapter 7
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ragtime, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The American Dream
Replication and Transformation
Freedom, Human Dignity, and Justice
The Cult of Celebrity
Women’s Roles
Social Inequities
Summary
Analysis
Tateh is a socialist. One day he invites Evelyn to go with him and Little Girl to hear famous anarchist Emma Goldman—whom he respects personally but disagrees with politically—speak. Evelyn doesn’t know the difference between a socialist and an anarchist.
Socialism is a political ideology that calls for public (rather than private) ownership of the means of production. Anarchism is a political ideology that calls for the abolition of social and political hierarchies. In the early 20th century, reformers and revolutionaries under the banner of each ideology fought sometimes separately and sometimes together to improve the lives of the poor, disadvantaged, and oppressed and to oppose the dictates of elites.
Themes
Evelyn finds Goldman’s speech fascinating. It quickly turns from its ostensible subject (the plays of Henrik Ibsen) to her real concern: the social and sexual oppression of women. She catches sight of—and calls attention to—Evelyn as an example. Tateh is horrified to learn that his benefactor is the scandal-ridden society beauty. Bitterly remarking that his life is “desecrated by whores” he takes Little Girl’s hand and storms off. Evelyn tries to follow them as the restive meeting dissolves into pandemonium. But Goldman grabs her by the arm and escorts her away.
Despite her initial cluelessness, Evelyn quickly finds herself swept up in Goldman’s ideas. It’s not hard to see why: the men in Evelyn’s life have sometimes subjected her to terrible oppression and abuse. When Goldman outs Evelyn, Tateh is horrified—he may hold countercultural ideas about the distribution of wealth, but he’s just as conservative as the well-to-do Father when it comes to matters of female sexuality.
Themes
Mother’s Younger Brother follows Goldman and Evelyn back to Goldman’s boarding house, hiding himself in the closet of her room when he sees an opportunity. He watches as Goldman talks to the younger woman, confessing her fascination and sense of kinship with her, despite her disrespect for the way Evelyn allows men to use her in exchange for money. Goldman is a proponent of free love. The only time she came close to sex work, she was trying to make enough money to buy her lover, Alexander Berkman, a train ticket so he could go to Pittsburgh and assassinate steal magnate and union-buster Henry Clay Frick.
Younger Brother’s obsession suggests both Evelyn’s power and her vulnerability. Her beauty can make men do foolish things and she has, in the past, sometimes been able to leverage this truth for her own benefit. But she’s so used to being ogled and followed that she barely notices Younger Brother tracking her to the hotel. The way he slips into the closet as if he has a right to impose himself on Evelyn’s life offers an uncomfortable reminder of the era’s patriarchal ideals. Goldman offers a vision of a different future, but it seems very distant from her moment in time.
Themes
Evelyn protests that she only cares about losing her “urchin” (Little Girl). Perhaps it’s better, Goldman says. People come and go from one’s life, like her lover, Berkman, who emerged from 18 years of imprisonment for attempted murder a mere shadow of his former self. She commiserates about how hard it is to have a man in prison like Evelyn does.
By denying Little Girl a proper name, the book makes her a representative example of the immigrant experience. But it’s hard not to notice how neatly this mirrors the way Tateh and Evelyn (for different reasons) claim ownership over her. The book carefully avoids constructing any personality for Little Girl, leaving her vulnerable to being cast in various roles (the adorable urchin, the unsullied virgin) in other people’s stories.
Themes
Get the entire Ragtime LitChart as a printable PDF.
Having put Evelyn at her ease, Goldman now encourages her to shed her restrictive corset and other undergarment. Mother’s Younger Brother watches Goldman undress Evelyn and rub astringent over skin that has been bruised and indented by corset stays. He watches her massage Evelyn’s voluptuous body—back and front—with oil. Goldman massages Evelyn’s genitals and brings her to orgasm. She brings Mother’s Younger Brother to orgasm, too; he suddenly falls from the closet into the room with his penis in his hand.
There’s an uncomfortable disjuncture here between the politics of female freedom and empowerment Goldman espouses and the way the book—through Younger Brother’s eyes—nevertheless turns Evelyn into an object for the pleasure and gratification of the male gaze. With ironic humor, this scene can be read as suggesting both the nobleness of Goldman’s ideals and the long road to achieve true gender equality.
Themes
