To
this point in Ragtime, one of the
main themes is satisfaction, or lack there of, in each of the characters. Doctorow brings out each character’s
dissatisfaction with certain aspects to their life while ironically critiquing
America’s past, present, and (now) future at the same time. This, however, does not hold true with the
little boy, who Doctorow seems to spare from his ironical attacks.
First
there is Robert Peary, trying desperately to “discover” the North Pole, but can
never actually find its precise location due to inaccurate measurements and shifting
ice.
Peary lay on his
stomach and with a pan of mercury and a sextant, some paper and a pencil, he
calculated his position. It did not
satisfy him. He walked further along the
floe and took another sighting. This did
not satisfy him. All day long Peary
shuffled back and forth over the ice, a mile one way, two miles another, and made
his observations. No one observation
satisfied him. He would walk a few steps
due north and find himself going due south.
On this watery planet the sliding sea refused to be fixed. He couldn’t find the exact place to say this
spot, here, is the North Pole.
Nevertheless there was no question that they were there. All the observations together indicated
that. Give three cheers, my boy, he told
Henson. And let’s fly the flag. Henson and the Esquimos cheered loudly but
could not be heard in the howling wind. (80)
Peary never “actually” reached the
“true” North Pole. But yet he convinces himself that they were “close enough”
because enough dissatisfactory recordings all taken together can apparently
create an accurate one. Like the three cheers covered up by the
howling wind, he never reaches his true goal and copes with it by convincing
himself that he indeed was there. But
why does it matter that he “truly” reached the North Pole or not? Throughout the entire book I imagine
Doctorow just laughing at the poor reading trying to find the “truth.” Was Peary actually at the North Pole? “It
doesn’t matter,” Doctorow says. Why do
we care about who stepped on one part of land first? That is what Doctorow wants to convey to the
reader: Why do we care about “truth” and “history”? Isn’t history just a series of seemingly inconsequential
events that affect society only because of what we have been taught to believe
is important? Doctorow doesn’t give the reader a clear answer on what he thinks
about these questions: he merely gets
the reader thinking about these questions on their own.
Then
Doctorow takes us to Harry Houdini, where Houdini is asking some of these same
questions about his career:
There was a kind
of act that used the real world for its stage.
He couldn’t touch it. For all his
achievements he was a trickster, an illusionist, a mere magician. What was the sense of his life if people
walked out of the theatre and forgot him?
The headlines on the newsstand said Peary had reached the Pole. The real-world act was what got into the
history books. (99)
How is Peary stepping on some ice
and saying it is the Pole more real that Houdini tricking his audience into
thinking that he can escape from seemingly inescapable situations? Through the following chapter Houdini tries
to “escape” from his normal routine of life, but cannot find satisfaction
wherever he goes.
He hired a team of
orderlies from Bellevue to come up on the stage and wrap him from head to foot
in bandages. This was done. Then they wound him in numbers of sheets and
then they strapped him to a hospital bed.
Then they poured water over him to weigh down the wrappings. Houdini escaped. The old theatre people went wild. He was unsatisfied. […] Houdini opened his
European tour at the Hansa Theatre in Hamburg.
The audiences were enthusiastic.
The papers gave him lots of space.
He had never known such feelings of dissatisfaction. He wondered why he had devoted his life to
mindless entertainment. (99-101)
Directly following this series of
dissatisfaction after dissatisfaction, Houdini finally finds what he has been
so desperately longing for: an airplane.
How does Houdini find so much more purpose in flying an airplane in
circles than performing incredible feats in front of enthusiastic audiences? To
add to the irony, Doctorow purposefully puts Houdini and Peary
side-by-side: Houdini views the Peary
expedition as more “real” and “important” than his acts, but who is better
remembered in the present day?
Ford,
Morgan, Evelyn, and the whole rest of the cast of Ragtime also show extreme dissatisfaction toward their lives, with
the exception of the little boy. He not
only can master the force and see into the future, but he seems to channel
Doctorow a bit and sums up satisfaction pretty perfectly: “It was evident to
him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless
process of dissatisfaction.” (118)
