History is Always Repeating Itself
E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime suggests that history does not move in a straight line but rather loops and repeats, as its title suggests, where the ragtime rhythm circles back on itself with variations. Issues like racial injustice, labor exploitation, and the glorification of wealth dominate the early 20th-century setting of the novel, but they feel just as relevant when Doctorow was writing in 1975, and even now in the 21st century. The book’s fragmented narrative style, constantly shifting between characters and events, reinforces this sense of history as disjointed and cyclical. Nothing feels resolved; instead, the struggles of one generation simply reemerge in the next. Coalhouse Walker Jr.’s story best exemplifies this repetition in the book. His humiliation at the hands of Willie Conklin, as well as the other racist firemen, and his escalating demands for justice speak towards a larger American pattern. It highlights the grievances of the marginalized...