The Named and The Unnamed

So far, I've very much enjoyed reading Ragtime. The characters, in particular, are fascinating -- named historical figures like Harry Houdini to strange identities like Mother, Doctorow does it all. 

We’ve discussed briefly in class about the “title”-named characters (which I’ll refer to as the “unNamed” characters from here on out, for ease of writing). Despite the stark differences in our minds between, say, a household (classroom?) name like Sigmund Freud and a nameless identity like “Mother’s Younger Brother”, Doctorow doesn’t seem to treat his two types very differently. If we get the same cheeky narration with both "Freud"-types and "Father"-types, what’s the difference? And where does Coalhouse Walker Jr, a supposedly “Named” character who didn’t fully exist in what we call “history”, fit into this narrative? 

I’d argue that title-characters remain unNamed because they are figures, archetypes, just as much as they are individual characters. Tateh’s story, for example, the story of a working-class Jewish immigrant in New York, is one we don’t often see individually represented in history class. Sure, we see the photos from How the Other Half Lives, we read about Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, but this novel is arguably the closest we have gotten to understanding the self-told account of someone like Tateh. Ragtime’s Tateh, then, is thus meant to represent all “tateh”s of the world to some extent. Through Doctorow’s narrative, we are afforded at least some second-hand emotion, some real idea of what it meant to be a single father, a working-class revolutionary, or a street artist. Mother represents what it means to be a suburbanite mother as well as an independent woman, Younger Brother represents what it means to be a young dependent in love, Father represents all the old-world upper-middle-class men who the world has left behind. 

The already-represented narratives, on the other hand, are included in the form of Named characters like Evelyn Nesbit. As these characters were part of what we now call “pop culture” in the early 20th century, they had resounding impacts upon the era’s narrative. A pastiche of the 1900s would be incomplete without, say, the inclusion of America’s first sex symbol. At the end of the day, however, I believe the purpose of the Named characters is the same as that of the unNamed -- they merely represent archetypes, the public roles from this era that Doctorow thought worthy of inclusion. (This view perhaps explains why Doctorow writes the Named and unNamed characters similarly -- they serve the same purpose in his 1920s literary collage.) In many cases, the Named characters in Ragtime created the archetypes they represent or are so massive in American mythology that they typify it. Through the wearing-down of time, their names have arguably become titles rather than individual identities in the American psyche, putting their identities on a similar literary level to the unNamed. The name J.P. Morgan represents the rich, eccentric Gilded Age businessman, just as the title “Tateh” represents a specific immigrant identity. Through the usage of both documented and undocumented historical figures, Doctorow effectively creates a cohesive narrative pastiche of early 20th century society. 

Where does this leave Coalhouse, then? He doesn’t seem to fall in either of the two categories, being neither Named (as he isn’t in our version of history”) or unNamed. After some digging, however, I’ve found that he does serve the same purpose as both types of characters -- to fulfill a certain literary and social archetype of the early 20th century. Mr. Mitchell has briefly mentioned this in class, but Coalhouse Walker (both his name and story) actually originates from a 19th century novella titled Michael Kohlhaas, which in itself originates from the life of Hans Kohlhase, a german merchant from the 16th century. Ragtime’s Coalhouse, then, fits almost exactly into this specific literary figure -- a man who had his means of transportation damaged, then began performing criminal acts as a method of contact. By including this literary figure (who in turn stems from a “historical” figure) along with a multitude of social/historical archetypes, Doctorow blurs the psychological line between “history” and “fiction”, turning what would have been a near-direct collage of 20th century narratives to something more metafictional. 

(Additional notes: I didn’t mention Sarah in this blog post, as I didn’t see which sort of archetype she’d fit into, but if you have any ideas, please let me know in the comments! I think Michael Kohlhaas mentions Kohlhaas having a wife, but not her name being Sarah…)