The Narrator in Ragtime
One of the factors that makes Ragtime so unique is its narrator and narration style throughout the book. Personally, I can’t pinpoint the narrator into exactly one category. Although the narrator could be considered as objective, it still seems to lead the readers to a certain conclusion in some matters, almost narrating situations to us from a modern perspective. For example, in the passage on page 34, the narrator recites facts, which are indeed truthful, but in such a way that leaves the reader disgusted at the state of America. The narrator tells the story of working America satirically from employers' perspective, emphasizing that even children are dehumanized into being more “agile than adults” but “most likely to lose their fingers”. The narrator also hits readers with issue after issue with America, overwhelming us with the dreadfulness that used to be normalized in the early 1900s. Even though the facts themselves are horrific, the way the narrator presents them to us is...