New Times and Seasons: The Breakthrough

Change is constant as we have found in the family dynamics of Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow. As the various characters enter into different seasons in their lives a noticeable change takes place. Not only did the change affect them, but it also affected those in their family units. Society sees marriage as a permanent commitment therefore marriages are expected to endure change. But in the Ragtime families, that was not the case; all characters went through transformation in their own time and or season, which constituted a breakthrough.
Ragtime, by Doctorow is a novel that is being told from the point of view of the Little Boy. It blends history with fiction its plots intertwine several families from different walks of life, upper class, middle class, lower class immigrant life, blacks, revolutionaries, and crimes.
The first set characters in the story are an upper class family that consisted of a father, mother, and a little boy. They had an extended family that consisted of Mother’s Younger Brother and Mother’s Father aka Grandfather. The family lived in New Rochelle, New York in an upper class neighborhood where Father owned his own business “manufacturing flags, and buntings and other accoutrements of patriotism. Brother worked there designing fireworks and had also become an expert at making bombs” (Doctorow 3-4).
The next group of characters was a lower class family of immigrants that arrived in New York from Italy they consisted of Tateh, Mameh, and a little girl. This family lived in poverty on the East Side of New York where everyone worked. “Mameh and the little girl sewed knee pants and Tateh worked on the streets (Doctorow 15).
Then there is Coalhouse Walker, a black pianist and the mother of his child or soon to be fiancée, Sarah, a washwoman. Sarah ended up in the home of Mother and Father