Themes of Imprisonment in Ragtime
In E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, he describes several characters as being trapped or imprisoned within society in various ways. He uses that harsh language with a couple of characters, deeply layered with irony. For example, Houdini’s main issue is his inability to achieve true freedom. While ironic because he is a famous escape artist known for being able to get out of anything, he struggles to impress an elite like Harry K. Thaw. In the scene where he escapes into Thaw’s prison, Thaw makes fun of him by undressing while he dresses, deeply disturbing Houdini. He mentions that people who don’t respect his art form always “broke through the pretense of his life and made him feel foolish (chapter 5).” It made it hard for him to recreate the wonder of the tricks he performed to these people, who saw him as kind of a party trick. He also struggled immensely with the death of his mother, becoming somewhat preoccupied with the afterlife, necromancy, and often performing intensely dangerous s...