The Relationship Between History and Fiction in E.l. Doctorow’s Ragtime

In Ragtime (1975), Doctorow blurs the line between reality and fiction in order to emphasise the validity of historical accounts. He intertwines historical facts and figures with fictional events and characters to recreate history and produce a historiographic metafiction. Hutcheon (1989, p.4) comments that, “Historiographic metafiction works to situate itself within historical discourse without surrendering its autonomy as fiction”. Doctorow uses historical figures such as Henry Ford and J.P Morgan and intertwines their lives with fictional characters in order to blur the boundaries between history and fiction. While the text is focused on the Ragtime era, Doctorow presents earlier historical figures to comment on the early years of the twentieth century. The novel does not uphold historical novel conventions and encourages readers to re-examine the accuracy of historiographical representation. Furthermore, Doctorow questions the ability of literature to accurately represent history by employing an unidentifiable narrator. Through the use of these techniques, Doctorow uses fiction to recount the events of history.

In Ragtime, Doctorow presents components of the past through earlier historical figures and events that belong to later characters. According to Hutcheon (1989), “Doctorow’s ironic intermingling of the factual and the fictive and his deliberate anachronisms underline his mistrust in the objective presentation of history”. After Sarah’s death, Coalhouse Walker and his supporters blow up a fire station and label themselves as a “Provisional American Agreement”. This is a deliberate anachronistic parody which projects the black activists of the 1960s, rather than the ragtime era. Furthermore, Doctorow endows his characters with anachronistic foresight. The Little Boy predicts the assassination of Duke Ferdinand early in the novel when he tells Houdini to “warn the Duke”. Parks (1991) argues that Ragtime is “not so much about the ragtime era as about how the era is viewed, composed and recomposed”. Thus, Doctorow’s use of anachronism in the novel suggests that knowledge of the past is intertwined with later events.

Ragtime does not follow the conventions of a classic historical novel where a “progressive theory of historical development” or “a cyclic view of history” is presented. Instead, Doctorow highlights the role of transformation in the dynamics of history. In efforts to divulge the fictional construction of the past, Doctorow intentionally mimics the received version of that past. Highlighting the idealized picture that was upheld by the white-middle class during the ragtime era, he openly exposes the erroneous sentimental pictures of the past. This is depicted from the beginning of the novel when Doctorow presents an account of the ragtime era:

“Women were stouter then. They visit the fleet carrying white parasols. Everyone wore white in summer. Tennis racquets were hefty and the racquet faces elliptical. There was a lot of sexual fainting. There were no Negroes. There were no immigrants”.

Doctorow intentionally presents this naïve image of the past in efforts to challenge the reader to re-examine the whole concept of historiographical representation. Savvas (2011, p.140) highlights that nostalgia plays a key role in producing an image of the past that is “distorted, premised upon, and constructed from the exclusion of undesirable elements; undercutting the reliability of patriotism, as the same time as it invokes it”. By the end of the paragraph, Doctorow summons an aspect of the past that nostalgia had forgotten though Emma Goldman’s character when she states: “Apparently there were Negroes. There were immigrants”.

The foreground of the novel is populated by three fictional families; each elected to represent different classes of societies in America during the early twentieth century. According to Wright (1993, p.14), the beginning of the novel demonstrates “whole racial groups have been written out of American history simply by not being mentioned, and the task of the novelist, as conceived by Doctorow is to write them back in”. The narrator portrays the views upheld by white upper middle-class families during that period and questions the level of affluence attributed to this area, by presenting two families that represented the marginalised members of society neglected by historians. Through the characterisation of Coalhouse Walker, Sarah and their baby, Doctorow presents matters of racism that was prevalent during the Ragtime era. Walker is portrayed as a successful man who encompasses wealth as a result of the Progressive era. Ramin (2014, p.163) describes that Walker’s progression in becoming rich and owning a car represents the very essence of “the American myth of mounting from rags to riches”. However, Doctorow portrays that this myth could never be experienced by a Negro. This is exemplified in text when the narrator states: “As he drove past they would fall silent and stare at him. He was not unaware that in his dress and as the owner of a car he was a provocation to many of the white people. Through this portrayal, Doctorow employs the use of fictional characters to portray a revised version of history, rather than creating his own version of historical events.

Harter and Thompson (1990) argue that that Doctorow puts history into his fiction by “imagining new facts rather than changing the facts”. Doctorow use verifiable historical occurrences, such as Freud’s travel to America and Emma Goldman’s deportation to Russia. He mixes it with the invention of new events which seem unlikely to occur in history and the interaction between fictional characters and historical figures. For example, Doctorow incorporates secret meetings between Henry Ford and J.P Morgan and Coalhouse Walker taking over J.P Morgan’s library. By incorporating his own invention of events, Doctorow challenges the reader to question their pre-existing ideas about how truthful the representation of the past can actually be.

Doctorow presents historical figures eccentrically throughout the text and liberates them from the historiographical frames. According to DeLillo (1997), “Fiction slips into the skin of historical figures. It gives them sweaty palms and the terror of restless nights. This is how human truth is freshly presented and consciousness is extended”. Through the incorporation of these historical figures, Doctorow exemplifies a new human truth. In this approach, Doctorow recuperates the likes of historical figures such as J. P Morgan and Henry Ford to present an alternative view of the opposing people’s history during the era. While the historical figures are not at the novel’s centre, their occasional presence creates confusion about the novel’s nature as a work of fiction or as a historiographic account of the past.

Throughout the narrative, Doctorow detaches himself from the narrative voice “through the use of storytellers who compose the account of the past that we read”. There is no decisive reference made to the narrator’s identity, thus producing an unidentifiable narrator. In detaching language from a source, it can evoke numerous alternations in the reading of the work. Through this technique, Doctorow ultimately forces his readers to question the ability for literature to accurately portray the past. The omniscient narrator describes the events of American society and intertwines this with the narration of stories about the characters of the novel. Throughout the novel, different aspects of American history are presented to the reader such as: “In the killing summer heat politicians up for re-election invited their followers to outings in the country” (Ragtime, p.18). With an overflow of objective observations, Doctorow experiments with fiction while incorporating a historical account. The narrator’s language throughout the text is impartial and neutral. For example, when Sarah’s death is being communicated to readers, the narrator merely announces, “Toward the end of the week Sarah died.” Furthermore, Doctorow employs a third person omniscient narrator throughout the majority of the novel. However, at the end of the novel, the narrative voice turns into a first-person point of view:

Poor Father, I see his final exploration. He arrives at the new place, his hair risen in astonishment, his mouth and eyes dumb. His toe scuffs a soft storm of sand, he kneels and his arms spread in pantomimic celebration, the immigrant, as in every moment of his life, arriving eternally on the shore of his Self.

Once Doctorow presents the narration in a first-person point of view, the reader is forced to view the novel in a subjective manner. The change in narration suggests that the recount of history is ultimately reliant on the narrator’s point of view.

As a historiographic metafiction, Ragtime violates the boundary lines of fiction and reality to indicate that history is no longer a tangible truth about the past. Rather, it is a subjective account that can be constructed and re-constructed. Through the employment of experimental techniques, Barth uses fiction to explore historical events. Doctorow uses historical personages and intertwines them with the lives of fictional characters in such a way that it becomes impossible to distinguish between fact and fiction. Thus, readers are confronted with the fact that there are many alternatives to consider when establishing an accurate version of past events. Through the inclusion of diverse elements that form an image of the insight of history where famous historical figures and events, as well as fictional characters and events are intertwined, Doctorow provides an alternative recount of the past based on his provisioning of American history.

Works Cited

• Bevilacqua, Winifred Farrant. “Narration and History in E.L Doctorow’s ‘Welcome to Hard Times, The Book of Daniel, and Ragtime.” American Studies in Scandinavia 22.2 (1990): 94-108.
• Doctorow, E. L. Ragtime. New York: Random House, 2001. Print. 
• Harter, Carol C., and James R. Thompson. EL Doctorow. Vol. 562. Twayne Pub, 1990.
• Hutcheon, Linda. 'Historiographic Metafiction Parody and the Intertextuality of History.' Johns Hopkins University, 1989. Print.
• Parks, John G. E. L. Doctorow. New York: Continuum, 1991. Print.
• Ramin, Zohreh. “History/ Fiction: An Intertextual Reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime.” Language, Linguistics, Literature, vol. 20, no. 1, 2014, pp. 157–166.
• Savvas, Theophilus. American Postmodernist Fiction and the Past. Palgrave Macmillan Limited, 2011.
• Wright, Derek. 'Ragtime Revisited: History and Fiction in Doctorow's Novel.' International Fiction Review 20.1 (1993).