The story-arc of Mother’s Younger Brother alone is a thing to behold. Midst attempts to look at the whole of Ragtime, many a literary critique could focus solely on him. Although he always seems to be operating under the shadow of a more prominent person, he certainly draws my eye quite a bit. First Evelyn, then Emma Goldman, Coalhouse, and finally Emiliano Zapata, Younger Brother is a bit of a glutton for a cause.
Love, revolution, justice, more revolution.
During our discussion of him, one aspect caught my attention: how Doctorow portrays social justice through this character of Younger Brother. There certainly is evidence for an argument that Doctorow just shakes his head at the idea of radical social justice. The character of Mother’s Younger Brother begins in a way that might seem like Doctorow making fun of him, making him the angst-ridden young adult, wayward and philosophical. His end also might be thought of as being quite the snide shoot at people who spend their lives jumping from one social justice cause to the next: dying alone in a Mexican desert with no one around.
I will start with his death, as my argument that Doctorow wants us to see Younger Brother as an honorable character. Many of the characters in Ragtime are very high profile: Evelyn Nesbit, J.P. Morgan, Ford, Harry K. Thaw, Stanford White, and in the case of White, his dramatic death is all the media can busy itself with. Had Doctorow included the deaths of any of these other famous characters, the portrayal of them would be, in a sense, a scathing critique of the media. All people die. For the media and public, some deaths are more important than others. Some people DO make significant contributions to the world and should be recognized, but others are famous simply at a disproportionate level, and at their deaths they are portrayed as angelic, saintly even. I see this phenomenon today with the deaths of famous actors, where one day they may be hated, and the second they die, everyone wants to say they were the biggest fan.
Mother’s Younger Brother dies alone, unseen, and no one makes a big deal out of it. He dedicated quite a bit of his adult life to following the shadows of revolutionaries to work for their cause, and it draws to a close far away from home. Comparatively to the extravagant death of Stanford White, I see this as quiet and honorable. Although this may relate little to social justice, I see it as Doctorow’s “head nod” to Younger Brother.
My other point is that Doctorow makes it known that Younger Brother keeps a journal each day until his death. The conscientious participant of life is always reflecting, and journal keeping seems a narrative way to explain self-reflection. He wants to let us know that this character is not acting wildly and without forethought. Each of his actions are thought-through and purposeful. This helps dispel the accusation that he is a bandwagon revolutionary, simply joining on anything that comes his way.
Younger Brother’s growth throughout Ragtime also shows that Doctorow was continually thinking about him. Sometimes authors create characters, lose interest in them, and allow the loose ends to pile up, carelessly. Younger Brother is clearly planned with care. His social justice-tendencies were carefully decided upon by his author, and he becomes a person of intrigue, ending his life in an honorable fashion.
You make a good point about YB's journal here--which could be seen as simply another little "meta" trick, where Doctorow tries to make the fictional characters seem "historical." The fact that his journal begins alongside his "career" as a revolutionary does suggest a seriousness of purpose, a deeper self-awareness and sense of himself as part of "history." It might be seen as evidence that he's "found himself"--the journal apparently doesn't record navel-gazing or soul-searching (i.e. him "trying to find himself"). It records--with a conscious eye toward "history"--his actions and his reasons for those actions. I agree that, in this light, his anonymous death needn't seem absurd or futile but might be viewed as quietly heroic: he doesn't seek glory, or to "make a name for himself"; he quietly and dutifully commits to the work of revolution (i.e. "blowing things up"). His death isn't a "failure" of this impulse--its anonymity reflects a man who has been totally subsumed by his cause. Maybe his commitment is even more remarkable because, as a privileged white man from the suburbs, it's not *his* fight. Most Americans (like him, before he attends that Goldman speech) don't even know there IS a revolution in Mexico at the time.
ReplyDelete