Mother's Younger Brother's Identity Transformation in Ragtime
In E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, Mother’s Younger Brother begins the novel as a lost and lonely character, unsure about where he fits in the world. He’s very disconnected from his family and uninterested, except when it comes to his passion for fireworks. His obsession with Evelyn Nesbit and his eventual heartbreak after she rejected him left him feeling emotionally astray. Mother’s Younger Brother even describes wanting to “pack his heart with gunpowder and blow it up"(Doctorow 114), a line that foreshadows his later transformation into someone willing to use violence to get a message across. Younger Brother’s identity begins to shift when he meets the political activist Emma Goldman and, more importantly, when he witnesses the insane injustice faced by Coalhouse Walker Jr. Coalhouse’s struggle against racism and police brutality brews something in Younger Brother’s heart. For the first time, Younger Brother experiences a powerful sense of rage...