The Brevity of Charles Victor Faust and Its Revelations of Doctorow’s Writing Intentions
Ragtime offers a wide variety of interesting characters, both fictitious and historical, each with their distinct personalities and characteristics, and their interactions are a central factor that make the novel uniquely entertaining. However, some characters receive more attention than others, the main characters notably receiving the majority of the spotlight, while others are briefly shone/introduced then neglected for the rest of the book. Charles Victor Faust is one of these minor characters, introduced into the story as a mascot of the Giants in a baseball game against the Boston Braves. His narrative, however, only lasts to the span of a few pages, his story abruptly ending with the description of a single paragraph, explaining how he was used as amusement by the team, was kicked out when they got bored of him, was sent to an insane asylum and died there (232). When I first read this portion of the book, my first reactions were of how random these details were and of curiosity of whether this story was true or not. To my astonishment, this account of Charles Victor Faust was indeed a true story (an excellent example of how Doctorow is able to seamlessly blend history and fiction, by the way), and as I read more into the story, I found myself with a new favorite character.
Regardless of character preferences, though, I find myself posing a question about Doctorow’s writing: Why such brevity for arguably one of the most interesting narratives in the book? One might simply answer that much like other novels, there is a hierarchy of characters in terms of importance based on the novel’s central storyline and goals; some characters inevitably have to be less important than others. While I do think this answer may be a possible explanation to this question, I feel as though there is a more intentional, complex reason Faust is incorporated in this way. After all, if characters are only incorporated to serve the central storyline, why were the details of Faust’s life included at all?
While I believe there are many explanations for this phenomenon, the most prevalent theory in my opinion is that this phenomenon exemplifies Doctorow’s attempt at blending aspects of history into the book, trying to substantiate the “history” part of this historical fiction novel. From previous history classes I have attended, history textbooks often include “side notes” or “fun facts” that describe accounts of historical figures that are interesting to read. Although these accounts may not be directly relevant to the main passage of the textbook, they are still entertaining to read and seem to be intended to make the process of learning history more fun. These characteristics of history textbooks also reflect on the goals of historians themselves: to account for as many details as possible of the past. Using these characteristics of history textbooks and historians, Doctorow treats his novel as an historical document and includes Faust’s narrative to not only keep the reader entertained, but also in an effort to meticulously incorporate the interesting aspects of the early 20th century, an exemplification of yet another one of Doctorow’s brilliant mixtures of history and fiction.
Felix Lee
I like this interpretation of one of the details in Ragtime, but I can't help feeling that there's a greater meaning to these seemingly inconsequential random details, especially since the book is itself extremely random. I think that Doctorow intended the inclusion of Faust to be another example of cruel irony where even the poor immigrant baseball players take advantage of someone slightly less fortunate.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised when I learned that Charles Victor Faust was a real person and what he did in the book is actually what happened to him in real life. I also agree, that the reason why Doctorow added in Charles Victor Faust into Ragtime is because he wanted to incorporate real history into the book. I think it is also meant to be a suprising story which doesn't sound real but makes the reader wonder if his story did actually happen.
ReplyDeleteYou and I may have been the only two in this class to write about the baseball chapter--one of my favorite little interludes in the book, which as you note is pretty much entirely grounded in actual baseball history (and of all sports, baseball has been most rigorously historicized by fans). This episode is easy to skip over, with everything going on in the plot at this point, but it reveals a lot about Father, his insecurities and conservatism, and the Young Boy's more modern acceptance of the game in all its ugliness and rudeness.
ReplyDeleteThis exploration of the Faust's purpose is something I had truthfully not thought of after the chapter. After reading this post, I've realized that there is a lot to be considered for why Doctorow included him. Your theory that Doctorow is further blending history with fiction by presenting a fictional sounding character such as Faust when he is actually a historical character is very interesting. From here, I'm interested in what other parallels can be drawn between him and other one-shot characters in terms of their purpose as historical figures as well as the nature of Father and Young Boy's interaction with him. Additionally, I feel there is something to be said about the brief and almost dismissive addressing of Fausts fate, saying he would die in an asylum after the players grew bored of him, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is.
ReplyDeleteI like that you chose to explore a character that isn't central to the book. I agree that Doctorow might have included Faust's story as an entertaining historical detail. It's also possible that Doctorow included Faust's story because he wanted his readers to examine what they perceive as history and what they perceive as fiction. The combination of history (Faust) and fiction (Little Boy and Father) in the chapter makes this more difficult to determine.
ReplyDeleteHey Felix! What an interesting blog idea to write about, discussing a character that was briefly mentioned in one chapter and discarded by the end of it. E.L Doctorow seems to enjoy inserting random historical characters in random moments in ways that don't effect the over-arching narrative whatsoever, so it is pretty intriguing to attempt to analyze why he does so. While I'm not sure if I agree that Doctorow included Faust as a "fun fact", I do feel like he includes the historical character to enhance the historical aspect of Ragtime - that history does not often have a specific reason for something occurring, and sometimes people or events just come into the perspective whether the writer likes it or not.
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