Previous
Chapter 25
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ragtime, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The American Dream
Replication and Transformation
Freedom, Human Dignity, and Justice
The Cult of Celebrity
Women’s Roles
Social Inequities
Summary
Analysis
Coalhouse Walker Jr. spends all the money he had saved for the wedding on a spectacular funeral for Sarah. Most of the attendants are people he knows through the music scene. They are all impeccably dressed. After the service, the funeral procession—complete with a five-piece brass band—drives from Harlem to Brooklyn, where Coalhouse has purchased a cemetery plot for Sarah through the Negro Musicians’ Benevolent Association. Onlookers watch with wonder as the “grand parade” winds its way across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Coalhouse uses the funeral in much the same way he deploys his fashionable clothing and his car (at least while it was intact): as a clear and bold statement of his belief that his life has inherent value and dignity, no matter what white society says about the matter. Thus, it’s painful when the funeral meant to honor Sarah devolves into a spectacle for curious onlookers. Coalhouse’s assertion of dignity is empty in a society that refuses to acknowledge his full humanity.
Themes
