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Chapter 27
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
The explosion comes from the Emerald Isle engine house. By the next morning, police investigators sifting through the rubble of the burned building have pieced together evidence of a shocking crime. It seems that at around 10:30 the previous night (during the company’s Thursday-night poker game), a false fire alarm came in from the north end of town. The firefighters hitched their ponies to the wagon and turned up the flame on its boiler. But someone was waiting in the dark outside, and this person opened fire with a shotgun as they opened the station doors. The gunfire killed two of the horses instantly, and as they fell, they pulled the engine over. Three firefighters were shot to death; the falling engine crushed a fourth. The firebox spilled and set the firehouse ablaze. Eventually the heat caused the boiler to explode.
The Emerald Isle firefighters have an old-fashioned steam pumper, a piece of firefighting equipment developed in the early 19th century. These used the power of steam in a boiler to turn pistons which generated power to force water through firehoses to put out flames. Ironically, the design itself, because it required a fire to be lit in the boiler to turn water into steam, constituted a fire hazard of its own. Coalhouse’s plan—for the book makes it clear that no one else could be responsible even if he’s not named as a suspect immediately—takes advantage of this weakness in the steam pumper’s design. Taking down the firehouse with its own tools reinforces the idea that sometimes violence isn’t just necessary—it’s also warranted to bring about change.
Themes
Father heard the explosion when it happened and for a moment he wondered if happened at his company’s fireworks warehouse. But the light comes from the wrong end of town. The next day, after hearing what happened, he visits the crime scene at lunch time. He can see Coalhouse Walker Jr.’s Model T submerged in the pond across the street from the station. Father goes straight home, where he finds Mother trying to comfort Sarah’s baby.
Father quickly makes the connection between Coalhouse and the fire and—subconsciously, at least—between the fire and Younger Brother. Remember that the fireworks arm of the business, which Father initially suspects might be the source of the blast, has been under Younger Brother’s control for some time.
Themes
The evening papers carry a report from the only survivor that an unidentified Black man conducted the attack. He was looking for Chief Conklin, who was not at the station that evening. People widely suspect that he had at least one accomplice to pull the alarm across town. Father drinks heavily that night and picks a fight with Mother about her decision to shelter Sarah. He gets a twisted pleasure from making Mother cry. Father plans to go to the police in the morning and tell them about Coalhouse. If he’s going to identify the musician, Younger Brother insists, he should also explain Coalhouse’s motive. Father is horrified to hear Younger Brother defend a “savage.”
The newspaper stories about a mysterious accomplice further suggest Younger Brother’s involvement—after all, he’s the person who has showed the most sympathy toward Coalhouse’s plight—but Father doesn’t consciously make that connection yet. To him, the violence seems to be the natural consequence of letting things get out of the normal order, like inviting a Black man to make social calls at his house. He’s not wrong that things are changing, but the book makes it very clear that he’s wrong to resist the cause of justice.
Themes
But Coalhouse Walker Jr. has already identified himself, in letters he left at the local newspapers warning that he’d keep attacking fire stations until his Model T is returned “in its original condition.” The police keep quiet about the letters while they search nearby Black neighborhoods looking for him in vain.
Father sees his knowledge about Coalhouse’s grievance as a chance to right the disorder and assert his authority as a white man. But Coalhouse has even denied him this pleasure by taking responsibility for the violence himself. In doing so, he shows himself to be a committed revolutionary. And he says that his life is worth nothing (for surely, the authorities will hunt him down and put him to death for his crimes) unless it is worth as much as the lives of white Americans.
Themes
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