Colors of Ragtime
One thing that struck me when reading Ragtime was its persistent description of clothing color. Whether describing main characters or spectators present for no more than a few sentences, Doctorow rarely fails to mention the color of clothing donned. Looking a little deeper, I also noticed many mentions of color elsewhere in the novel which pertained to other objects and settings, which led me to believe color held a significance separate from simply describing objects.
The two most prominent colors present within Ragtime are white and black. On first glance, it is easy to associate those colors with the ideal, rich, middle-class livelihood contrasting the destitute, poverty-stricken minority, as one of the novel's primary themes is the dichotomy between white and black Americans. However, that interpretation falls apart when sized up to Ragtime's complex themes.
In Ragtime, almost everyone and everything is cloaked in black. White and black Americans alike are draped with black clothing, and deviation from this norm is very rare. But when it does happen, the color used is almost always white. White represents an almost magical unbelievability.
- Father cannot believe his eyes when he sees the Giants (in white uniform) turning baseball into a brawl.
- Tateh is shocked by "a vision of her maturity" when a layer of white chalk settles on his daughter's face.
- Tateh, once a poor working class man, turns into a happy-go-lucky caricature of the American Dream wearing almost exclusively white clothing.
- A white town car drives slowly up a road, whose passengers then theatrically bomb a firehouse, leaving only a calling card and a traumatized police officer.
- The Coalhouse gang mistakenly break into and occupy the white marble J.P. Morgan Library.
- Stanford White gets his brains blown out by his mistress' deranged husband atop a building he designed.
These incredulous occasions of white are contrasted with the dark black reality of America.
- At Sarah's funeral, "everything was black including the sky."
- Aboard his ship, J.P. Morgan sullenly looks outwards, where "sea and the sky were black and indistinguishable," only for a bird (presumably white) to appear and light up the rail a few feet in front of him.
- Blood turns Tateh's white hair and the plumes of the Archduke's helmet black.
The colors red, blue, and yellow, are also used throughout Ragtime, though more sparingly. Ignoring its association with communism, red seems to represents truth. Red skin is revealed underneath clothing many times, and blood turns objects of other colors to a truer black. Blue is used to describe workers, the Emerald Isle firefighters, J.P. Morgan's clothing, the baseball players' clothing, the crib for Sarah's baby, and the sky. What links all those things together, I'm not so sure. Yellow also seems to have a greater meaning, due to its presence in the sky during the violent storm at the coastal resort, but its comparatively benign usage elsewhere suggests otherwise.
Ragtime is a novel of heavy symbolism, where color is just one of the symbols Doctorow uses to breathe life into his portrait of America. Maybe my interpretation is what he intended, but the unbalanced significance of color may just as well be an ironic twist on a world where men of all colors are supposed to be created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.
I really like this analysis. Doctorow's seemingly random descriptions of the 1900s (for me) creates an extremely immersive environment. But beyond this it definitely has recurring themes and patterns that make the description more valuable than a surface level image of the 1900s. The color of clothing is an extremely interesting topic and I think you did a fantastic job dissecting it. I think this could be one of many themes in Doctorow's world, and its interesting how they all intersect to create the environment and his story.
ReplyDeleteKarl I think you did an amazing job at understanding how colors are used throughout the story of Ragtime. I really like how you go a bit deeper showing the complexity of the story by explaining other colors than black and white, showing how the story has multiple layers to it (its not so simple). Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good observation! I personally never paid attention to the color(only the type of clothing) but now after reading this article, I will keep that in mind. It's almost as if the white color symbolizes a contrast within the book. This contrast can be a change socially (maturity) or an element that isn't often seen or liked (the baseball players). Overall really good article and it has brought some awareness to the small details we often take for granted.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably a slightly facile observation, but one thing that the emphasis on white and black suggests to me is black-and-white photography, reminding us (in a rather meta/postmodern way) that so much of our images of what the past must have been like are in "black and white" in our minds. Blood-soaked white hair (on Tateh) would not really have looked BLACK, even if it were very dark red (dried blood)--but in a b&w photo or film, it would look black.
ReplyDelete(See my first blog post, on Winslow Homer etc., for a reflection on some ways that Doctorow uses art/photography as his basis for depicting the past.)
Great post! I like your unique focus on the significance of colors in Ragtime. The "magical unbelievability" of white that contrasts with the dark American reality of black. I especially like your analysis of red as a representation of truth and an amplifier of our dark reality normally hidden from view. Maybe you could also consider how the colors correlate to the Ragtime era and/or its music?
ReplyDeleteKarl, this is a fascinating analysis on an aspect of Ragtime that I didn't even think to analyze! E.L Doctorow's use of color is interesting, because he uses it as an actual allegory to social disparity but also as a fictional literary element of symbolism. To me, the whole concept of E.L Doctorow employing color as a way to interpret Ragtime seems heavily ironic as there tends to be a running joke in English classes that the color of an object is heavily overanalyzed to the themes of the narrative by a laughable extent. Good Work!
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