Ragtime

by

E. L. Doctorow

Little Boy Character Analysis

Little Boy is the only child of Mother and Father. He’s still quite young when Father goes on his arctic expedition, and he spends most of his time at home, playing by himself or listening to Grandfather retell stories from Greek and Roman mythology. Little Boy is interested in stereotypically American things like Western pulp magazines and baseball. When there’s a craze for ancient Egypt, he becomes interested in that, too. But he’s also obsessed with the idea of repetition and replication. He stares at himself in the mirror until he disassociates, and he listens to records over and over again, trying to see if the sound will ever change. When the family meets Tateh and Little Girl in Atlantic City, Little Boy and Little Girl become inseparable friends.

Little Boy Quotes in Ragtime

The Ragtime quotes below are all either spoken by Little Boy or refer to Little Boy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The American Dream Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1  Quotes

[Little Boy] felt that the circumstances of his family’s life operated against his need to see things and go places. For instance he had conceived an enormous interest in the works and career of Harry Houdini, the escape artist. But he had not been taken to a performance. Houdini was a headliner in the top vaudeville circuits. His audiences were poor people—carriers, peddlers, policemen, children. His life was absurd. He went all over the world accepting all kinds of bondage and escaping. He was roped to a chair. He escaped. He was chained to a ladder. He escaped. He was handcuffed, his legs were put in irons, he was tied up in a strait jacket and put in a locked cabinet. He escaped. He escaped form bank vaults, nailed-up barrels, sewn mailbags; he escaped from a zinc-lined Knabe piano case, a giant football, […] a rolltop desk, a sausage skin.

Related Characters: Father, Mother’s Younger Brother, Harry Houdini, Mother, Little Boy, Grandfather
Page Number: 6-7
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

One week later he took the girl down to the railroad station. She was in a contingent of two hundred going to Philadelphia. She was wearing a new cloak and a hat that kept her ears warm. He kept stealing glances at her. She was beautiful. She had a naturally regal posture. She was enjoying her new clothes. He was casual with her and tried not to be hurt. She had accepted the idea of leaving him without one word of protest. Of course, this was good for all concerned. But if she found it so easy, what would the future bring? She attracted people. […] Tateh was proud, but frightened too.

Related Characters: Tateh (Baron Ashkenazy), Evelyn Nesbit, Mother, Emma Goldman, Little Boy, Little Girl, Mameh
Page Number: 125-126
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

But he would sit in the parlor and tell the boy stories from Ovid. They were stories of people who became animals or trees or statues. They were stories of transformation. Women turned into sunflowers, spiders, bats, birds; men turned into snakes, pigs, stones and even thin air. The boy did not know he was hearing Ovid, and it would not have mattered if he had known. Grandfather’s stories proposed to him that the forms of life were volatile and that everything in the world could as easily be something else. The old man’s narrative would often drift from English to Latin without his being aware of it, as if he were reading to one of his classes of forty years before, so that it appeared nothing was immune to the principle of volatility, not even language.

Related Characters: Father, Little Boy, Grandfather
Page Number: 116
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

He’d always thought of himself as progressive. He believed in the perfectability of the republic. He thought, for instance, there was no reason the Negro could not with proper guidance carry every burden of human achievement. He did not believe in aristocracy except of the individual effort and vision. He felt his father’s loss of fortune had the advantage of saving him from the uncritical adoption of the prejudices of his class. But the air in this ball park open under the sky smelled like the back room of a saloon. Cigar smoke filled the stadium and, lit by the oblique rays of the afternoon sun, indicated the voluminous cavern of air in which he sat pressed upon as if by a foul universe, with the breathless wind of a ten-thousand-throated chorus in his ears shouting its praise and abuse.

Related Characters: Coalhouse Walker Jr. , Father, Mother’s Younger Brother, Mother, Little Boy
Page Number: 231
Explanation and Analysis:
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Ragtime PDF

Little Boy Quotes in Ragtime

The Ragtime quotes below are all either spoken by Little Boy or refer to Little Boy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The American Dream Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1  Quotes

[Little Boy] felt that the circumstances of his family’s life operated against his need to see things and go places. For instance he had conceived an enormous interest in the works and career of Harry Houdini, the escape artist. But he had not been taken to a performance. Houdini was a headliner in the top vaudeville circuits. His audiences were poor people—carriers, peddlers, policemen, children. His life was absurd. He went all over the world accepting all kinds of bondage and escaping. He was roped to a chair. He escaped. He was chained to a ladder. He escaped. He was handcuffed, his legs were put in irons, he was tied up in a strait jacket and put in a locked cabinet. He escaped. He escaped form bank vaults, nailed-up barrels, sewn mailbags; he escaped from a zinc-lined Knabe piano case, a giant football, […] a rolltop desk, a sausage skin.

Related Characters: Father, Mother’s Younger Brother, Harry Houdini, Mother, Little Boy, Grandfather
Page Number: 6-7
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

One week later he took the girl down to the railroad station. She was in a contingent of two hundred going to Philadelphia. She was wearing a new cloak and a hat that kept her ears warm. He kept stealing glances at her. She was beautiful. She had a naturally regal posture. She was enjoying her new clothes. He was casual with her and tried not to be hurt. She had accepted the idea of leaving him without one word of protest. Of course, this was good for all concerned. But if she found it so easy, what would the future bring? She attracted people. […] Tateh was proud, but frightened too.

Related Characters: Tateh (Baron Ashkenazy), Evelyn Nesbit, Mother, Emma Goldman, Little Boy, Little Girl, Mameh
Page Number: 125-126
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

But he would sit in the parlor and tell the boy stories from Ovid. They were stories of people who became animals or trees or statues. They were stories of transformation. Women turned into sunflowers, spiders, bats, birds; men turned into snakes, pigs, stones and even thin air. The boy did not know he was hearing Ovid, and it would not have mattered if he had known. Grandfather’s stories proposed to him that the forms of life were volatile and that everything in the world could as easily be something else. The old man’s narrative would often drift from English to Latin without his being aware of it, as if he were reading to one of his classes of forty years before, so that it appeared nothing was immune to the principle of volatility, not even language.

Related Characters: Father, Little Boy, Grandfather
Page Number: 116
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

He’d always thought of himself as progressive. He believed in the perfectability of the republic. He thought, for instance, there was no reason the Negro could not with proper guidance carry every burden of human achievement. He did not believe in aristocracy except of the individual effort and vision. He felt his father’s loss of fortune had the advantage of saving him from the uncritical adoption of the prejudices of his class. But the air in this ball park open under the sky smelled like the back room of a saloon. Cigar smoke filled the stadium and, lit by the oblique rays of the afternoon sun, indicated the voluminous cavern of air in which he sat pressed upon as if by a foul universe, with the breathless wind of a ten-thousand-throated chorus in his ears shouting its praise and abuse.

Related Characters: Coalhouse Walker Jr. , Father, Mother’s Younger Brother, Mother, Little Boy
Page Number: 231
Explanation and Analysis: