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Chapter 6
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
One day, when Evelyn leaves the Tombs, not a single reporter follows her. On a whim, she asks the driver to show her the city. In the Lower East Side, she sees a beautiful but dirty-faced child playing in the street. Ordering her driver to stop, she approaches Little Girl. Little Girl is tied by a clothesline to Tateh, who offers to make Evelyn a silhouette for 15 cents. Evelyn wants to know why he’s tied the child up. Tateh launches into a bitter tirade in Yiddish.
While Evelyn Nesbit is a historical character and many of the details surrounding Stanford White’s trial are historically accurate, the book again turns away from history into fiction in this moment. In a way, Little Girl’s story replicates Evelyn’s. Both are incredibly beautiful; both experienced destitution as children; both lost a parent (although Evelyn lost her father). Her interest, at least at first, seems driven by these alignments. Readers should remain alert for the way Little Girl’s story differs from—or transforms—Evelyn’s.
Themes
A passerby volunteers to translate Tateh’s words. He explains that little girls—and married women—are frequently snatched off the street and raped. Subsequently, the “defiled” females have little choice but to turn to sex work. The man says that Little Girl’s mother (Mameh) turned to sex work to feed her family, so Tateh drove her away. He’s tied Little Girl up to keep her safe. The sight moves Evelyn to tears.
Tateh’s tirade uncovers some of the dirtiest truths about life in the slums and its dangers for women and girls. His reaction to Mameh’s infidelity speaks to his prideful character (she only capitulated to her boss’s advances because she and Tateh weren’t making enough money to survive otherwise). It also reinforces patriarchal views that measure a woman’s value with her sexual purity and which place females under male authority—sometimes quiet literally, as in the case of Little Girl, who is tethered to her father by a rope.
Themes
This is how Evelyn becomes involved with Tateh and Little Girl. Every day she disguises herself in tattered clothes and drives to the Lower East Side, followed by a shy admirer (Mother’s Younger Brother). Tateh’s pride prevents him from accepting charity, so she commissions as many as 10 of his silhouettes a day. Little Girl holds Evelyn’s hand, but she’s too grief-stricken by the loss of Mameh to speak.
For Evelyn, spending time in the tenements seems like a game, a diversion from a life in which the tradeoff for her wealth is her husband’s family’s control and surveillance. In fact, she seems happy to escape the attention her celebrity brings her. Little Girl’s grief points to the harshness of Tateh’s actions toward his wife, but as a young female, she has no power in the situation. And, notably, Evelyn doesn’t seem to worry about Mameh’s absence either—it’s only her absence, in fact, that gives Evelyn the opening to insinuate herself into Little Girl’s life.
Themes
One day, Tateh and Little Girl aren’t on their usual corner. Evelyn rushes to their dingy apartment to discover that Little Girl is ill with fever. Her visit to their hovel wounds Tateh’s pride, but she eventually convinces him to go to work while she tends to the child. In his absence, she briefly considers kidnapping Little Girl, but thinks better of it. Instead, she renews her efforts to make their lives a little more comfortable. She’s so in love with both that she sees the world through a film of happy tears.
Little Girl’s illness harks back to an earlier description of just how hopelessly filthy and dangerous the slums are, especially for children. The book very strongly implies that Little Girl’s fate might have been that of so many other children (death) were it not for the interest of one wealthy woman (Evelyn). And this is hardly a model for communal wellbeing; true justice requires everyone being cared for equally rather than requiring people to find their own individual patrons.
Themes
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