Fate
I've seen a couple of recent blog posts talking about the ending of Ragtime , and whether it's a "good" or "bad" ending. The answer, of course, depends on which character you observe. Tateh and his new family get a happy ending, while Coalhouse and Father straight up die. So why is this? Ragtime has no single protagonist. There are multiple characters that we see as good, virtuous, etc, but they don't work together for a single cause. Rather, the "good guys" all have their own plots to follow. Tateh's quest to improve his life takes place while Coalhouse thirsts for revenge, the former succeeding while the latter arguably fails. The same can be said of the "antagonists": Father and Harry K. Thaw are both dislikable characters, but only Father has a "bad" ending. All of this stems from Doctorow sticking closer to reality and history, as opposed to the fiction we're used to. In most fiction novels, the protagonist...