The Peary Expedition
In E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, the Father accompanies Peary on his polar expedition. But why does Doctorow have a random businessman in the patriotism industry accompany Peary to the North Pole? Is it, like the appearance of Houdini in the car, a way to show that Doctorow can do whatever he wants with history? Or is there more to it than that?
For one thing, Father obviously comes back from the expedition seriously changed. His family notices radical differences in his character when he returns, and he himself does as well. As we see these changes, Doctorow also begins putting us into Father’s perspective more and more. His begins to replace the varied perspectives we get earlier in the novel. As we go on, more and more chapters are from his perspective, and from the perspective that he represents. Father begins thinking more and more about himself: about the fact that he has not taken his son to a ballgame, about how he thinks of his place in the world. His perspective, while obviously never anything approaching neutral, replaces the detached “rich” perspective of earlier in the novel, and provides different, but ultimately related commentary. Instead of the birds eye view of the poverty ball, or “there were no immigrants”, we get those aspects of Father which we find deeply distasteful. We see him repeatedly dismiss Coalhouse Walker, and complain about all of the ways in which Coalhouse is actually attempting to act as a respectable member of society, following social norms which Mother recognizes as, in fact, traditional and conservative, something which Father should appreciate. We have Father take his son out to the ballgame, and then spend most of it thinking about how much better his elite school’s team was, and how well they were behaved.
But all of this, we see only after Father’s return from the North. We spend time with him in some of the most extreme physical conditions imaginable, and see all his thoughts while he is there. His dismissals of the eskimos, even as they deal better with the cold than anyone else, and we see him turning back, unable to make it with Peary. And even though we maybe cannot see ourselves in Father, it seems to me that Doctorow gives us the passages in the North so as to ensure that we are prepared to accept our new, seemingly primary perspective in the later portions of the novel.
I originally thought that the North Pole expedition was just a one-off thing meant to establish historical connections in the book, but what you're saying about preparing the reader for a shift in perspectives makes a lot more sense. Because Father is almost definitely our "traditional" perspective throughout the novel, being racist and patriarchal to the point where it's wildly uncomfortable for us to read. But sending him on the North Pole expedition, Doctorow opens up the possibility for change by letting the family grow and gain some autonomy as people while the "man of the house" is gone for a year or two. And on the flip side, Father has to endure that expedition, hardening him into a shell of who he once was. When he brings his viewpoints that were frozen in time from before the trip, they're out of place compared to the rest of the family. Doctorow puts a lot of emphasis on the changing times throughout the book, and your post pretty succinctly covers how that change is somewhat, if not mostly, caused by the Peary expedition.
ReplyDeleteI've mentioned before on the blogs that Father represents the passing of the 19th century, and this expedition seems to be his parting adventure. Father's criticisms of Coalhouse Walker are kind of just the older generations complaining about "kids these days," with the rest of the family acting like "okay boomer" toward him. This expedition also gets Father out of the way for the rest of the family to develop the century from underneath him.
ReplyDeleteWow good explication of the north pole thing. You're right, it is weird that father of all people would accompany a world class explorer on a groundbreaking exploration. Sometimes this book almost crosses into the fantastical realm with doctorow and his omnipotent author power, but I'm here for it. So if i'm right you're saying the new state that the world is becoming is similar to the discovery of the north pole? I agree. Some, like father, can't take it.
ReplyDeleteDoctorow does sort of explain how Father came to have this brush with history: he's "an amateur explorer of considerable reputation" and a former president of the N.Y. Explorers Club, and somehow these connections enable him to pay to accompany Peary (although he's not really a crew member, and they quickly decide to leave him behind when he can't handle the cold). Maybe it's a bit like a billionaire paying to go into space with Elon Musk? Peary can partly fund his expedition by getting tourists like Father to foot some of the bill. (I have no idea whether civilians actually ever accompanied Peary--this is the narrative explanation, which isn't too far from the kind of arbitrary "make Houdini appear" authorial trickery.
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