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Chapter 30
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
After the baseball game, Father and Little Boy return home to find Mother uncharacteristically excited. The baby has taken his first steps. Later that night, Father and Mother discuss the situation and decide it’s safer for everyone if they spend the summer away, in Atlantic City. They will bring only their new Black housekeeper, both to help Mother and to give a plausible explanation for the baby’s presence.
Father worries about leaving Mother undefended, but just as when he went to the North Pole, he unhappily realizes that she does just fine on her own, without him. Still, Father’s trip away from his home, which is still besieged by the press, has clarified things. The family must leave the city if they’re to escape the fallout of Coalhouse’s actions.
Themes
It’s a good moment to leave, because the longer Coalhouse remains at large, the worse the situation in New Rochelle becomes. Black people experience violence. Fingers point at communist agitators. The new Police Chief starts asking questions about where Coalhouse is getting the money and high-quality explosives he needs to run his terrorist campaign. Militiamen and reporters rove the streets. The newspapers begin calling for the city to pull the Model T from the Firehouse Pond, where it has rested for weeks, because it will make front-page news.
The thin veneer of social cohesion with which the book opened—no matter a person’s race or creed, they all could unite around shared values, like patriotism—collapses amidst Coalhouse’s violent quest for justice. It’s a timely reminder that transformative change is dramatic and sometimes requires people of conviction to undertake difficult and violent actions. And that, for all the progress of the era, deep divides around racial and socioeconomic lines remain.
Themes
The ruined Model T does make front-page news, and it stands as a silent but damning witness to Coalhouse’s grievances. Calls for Will Conklin to leave are becoming more frequent and more threatening. This surprises Conklin, who expected the sympathy of his fellow white people, at least. Eventually, he wears out the patience of the city authorities, who turn on him, too. As he drinks himself into a self-pitying stupor, his wife quietly arranges for the family to go into hiding in New York City.
Tellingly, the public shows more curiosity about the car than about Coalhouse or the indignities and tragedies he’s suffered. Still, the longer the standoff continues, the clearer it becomes that society has failed Coalhouse and that there are different standards of justice for Black and white Americans. This remains true even as some people begin to turn on Conklin—driving him away from New Rochelle is a defensive move designed to deflect Coalhouse’s violence to New York City, not a meaningful attempt to redress the wrongs done to him.
Themes
In contrast to all this drama, Mother, Father, Grandfather, and Little Boy escape the city with little issue. When they change trains in New York at Pennsylvania Station (designed by Stanford White), Little Boy admires the glassed, vaulted roof. He gazes down the tracks at the numerous trains, all waiting impatiently to be on their way.
The wealthy family’s escape from the city echoes Tateh and Little Girl’s initial flight from New York City and subsequent escape from Lawrence. This further confirms the idea that the American Dream is an empty myth. Father’s wealth isn’t gone, but it’s clear that his sense of control over the world is gone—and so, in a way, he too is fleeing for his life.
Themes
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