Out of our class discussions, I was most interested when we talked about Doctorow’s portrayal of history and how it shapes our view of the past. He inserts his own fictional characters and the thoughts of the historical characters into history, which makes us as readers pay more attention.
One of the first examples of this is in chapter six, where Doctorow addresses Freud’s comment that “America is a mistake” (39). Doctorow makes statements about the state of employment at that time, but in an ironic way to draw the readers in. At one point, he talks about child laborers, calling them “happy elves” (39). Despite the clear irony here, the tone he uses is very factual, and this lack of sympathy towards people who are working in these awful circumstances emphasizes the inhumane situations people were put in at this point in time. I think that in this way, Doctorow aims to let us view the past social norms in a more negative light so that we can try to change the way we treat people in the present.
The same goes for his portrayal of Evelyn Nesbit. I have to admit that, at first, her character wasn’t interesting to me at all. She was just a sex symbol without any substance. Even with the characters who were real people, Doctorow manages to draw the readers in. With most of the historical characters, we already know about their achievements, but the “unheard of” stories written by Doctorow add more significance to the person in the book. With Evelyn, her secret trips to visit Tateh and the Little Girl, although arguably creepy, show her helping people of the lower class. Doctorow makes her trips anonymous, which make her seem a lot less shallow than those rich people who get tons of recognition for every little charitable thing they do. I think that after reading this story, Doctorow wants the readers to think about the importance of the people of the upper class helping those who are less fortunate.
In class, we also spent a lot of time talking about Coalhouse Walker Jr. and his incident. Coalhouse's character is written very realistically. Sarah and Coulhouse are the only two fictional characters who have real names and not just nicknames, and I think this is meant to draw our attention to their story. Today, we discussed how at the beginning of chapter 23 Doctorow describes the inner thoughts of Coalhouse less than he does with most characters in the book. This can be seen in lines such as “Walker may have realized this was probably the maximum support he could expect from a policeman” (177), where the author doesn’t give us a definite explanation. Perhaps Doctorow keeps his distance in order to get us to realize the seriousness of the situation. For most of the book, the author’s tone has a sort of humor to it. By portraying Coalhouse in this way, he makes sure that the readers don’t find the scene funny, and he lets us form our own opinions about the story rather than just giving us the answers.
Doctorow also uses Father’s attitude towards the situation to emphasize the racism here. Father thinks that Coalhouse should have just paid the $25 when he was stopped by the firemen in the first place. He also says “any lawyer who loves justice will do” (180). These examples alone show Father’s ignorance of the real issue at hand, and draws readers’ attention to the blatant racism.
So, through his own version of history, Doctorow tries to get the readers to realize the mistakes we as a society have made in the past, so we can attempt to learn from them now. I look forward to seeing if some of these trends continue throughout the book. Let me know what you think!
