In class we
have talked about how Doctorow uses his powers as an author in some ways that
are not quite subtle. For example, Doctorow makes Houdini all a sudden crash
next to the little boy’s house right after the little boy thought about the
magician. It’s a rather odd thing to happen, but perhaps Houdini happened to be
driving down that street and crash. The chances of that actually happening is
really unlikely, but it has some basis of realism. However, some of the other
things Doctorow adds to the story seems to be like some sort of magic.
The little
boy started off seeming like a normal kid. Sure, it was odd that Houdini
appeared right after the boy thought about him, but that was probably just
Doctorow trying to get Houdini into the story. But then the little boy says something
quite confusing. “Warn the Duke,” he told Houdini (Doctorow 10). Who’s this
duke? Why did the little boy randomly tell Houdini this? It just overall is a
puzzling end to the chapter. But the story goes on. Then as we follow Houdini
in his story, he happens to meet Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It can be easy to
forget the little boy’s prior warning like Houdini did (Not that Houdini would
know what to warn the duke about). However, the little boy’s statement is
somewhat prophetic. Could a warning have prevented Ferdinand’s assassination?
What would that have meant for WWI? This is only the start of the supernatural
powers of the little boy.
In Chapter
15, Doctorow tells us that the little boy “could look at the hairbrush on the
bureau and it would sometimes slide off the edge and fall to the floor. If he
raised the window in his room it might shut itself at the moment he thought the
room was getting cold” (Doctorow 117). Doctorow in this passage just basically
told us that the little boy has telekinetic powers. Any doubt about the boy
having strange powers is erased by Doctorow in this moment. It’s not just the
reader connecting the boy’s strange statement and the later encounter with
Ferdinand. Doctorow is showing us the unusual traits of the boy. For a book
that can mix history and fiction so well, it is odd that he would decide to
give the little boy these powers in a not so subtle way. What is Doctorow
trying to do with the little boy? Why is he being so obvious with his powers as
an author? There are a lot of strange things going on with the little boy. What
do you think?
I think that the boy represents Doctorow in Ragtime because it seems that whenever the boy thinks of something it will magically appear, which is a power only an author can have. I also believe that this connection is quite obvious because the author wants us to be aware of his postmodernist knowledge. Sam's post talks about how the novel contains three differently thinking era: late 19th century capitalistic thinking, early 20th century revolutionary thinking, and postmodernist thinking. I think that the author wants us to be aware of this time period's future implication and make those connections while reading the novel.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good question because I found myself thinking very similar questions whenever Doctorow inserted these scenes that seemed a little out-of-place. I think Sarah's point about the boy representing Doctorow makes a lot of sense because Doctorow holds a certain power that no one else can share with him. However, I was a little disappointed to find out that the boy's potential for an interesting story line was discontinued after a couple of scenes. The fact that the little boy knew so much but didn't really do much else throughout the rest of the book, was confusing for me because I was expecting a big change or growth in the little boy's character.
ReplyDeleteWhen we list the weird stuff around the Little Boy, we (I) often overlook the blatant account of his "telekinetic powers," knocking hairbrushes to the floor or closing windows with his mind. There are all kinds of theories out there (many on the blogs) about what this might mean for the novel and our understanding of Doctorow's intentions, but I agree with some of the theories in our class about Doctorow treating the boy as a kind of proto-"author," while at the same time flaunting his own "God-like" powers as an author (see Simon's post (https://aalitsimonof.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-clairvoyance-of-child.html)). To make a hairbrush fall from a bureau with your mind is (for most of us) very difficult if not impossible. But it's *easy* to *write* such an occurrence! While most people can't summon Houdini by thinking of him, it's not so hard to *write* a scene where this happens. And so on. The Little Boy and his inexplicable powers, among other things, work to dramatize the fact that this is a constructed work of fiction, and the author can literally do anything he wants within this frame.
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