Fueling the Fire

As we have been making our way through Doctorow's Ragtime I noticed his peculiar pattern of naming characters. it seemed that every fictional character had no distinct name, and every historical character (present in real life) had a full name. Take Evelyn Nesbitt, a real person in comparison to Mother. However, with the introduction of Coalhouse Walker, it seemed this pattern had no purpose. As I pondered this thought I did some research.

Nobody by the name of Coalhouse Walker existed in New Rochelle NY in 1902. Furthermore, there weren't any significant bombings of firehouses in that time period either. It boggled my mind that I couldn't seem to find a reason as to why Doctorow named this seemingly fictional character. Was it to represent the population of Black musicians at the time, in reference to his occupation? Was it to present a representative of the Black population that didn't act like the stereotype present in Father's head? There didn't seem to be a reason for Coalhouse Walker to exist.

Furthermore, the name "Coalhouse Walker" itself is a completely different puzzle. I assumed Coalhouse was tied to the fact that he is Black, and serves as a stereotypically Black name in addition to Walker. Trying to find a connection to his name, I found that Doctorow may have based the name Coalhouse Walker off a character named Michael Kolhaas in novellas Michael Kolhaas by Heinrich Von Kleist. Though I'm not sure what the significance of that fact is, I found it interesting to ponder the irony of his name. 

Though we haven't read much into the book enough to have finished Walker's story, I thought about the idea of a "coalhouse" in relation to a fire station. Though the connection may be a stretch I pondered the thought that his name could relate to his grievances with the fire chief. if you think of what fuels a fire, coal can be the answer; alternately, if you think of what fuels walker's fights w the firehouse its the fact that he is Black.  If we look at the name "coalhouse" in relation to his race, the correlation makes sense in a basic way. 

Though this idea seems a bit far fetched, and I doubt Doctorow intended such a basic correlation between his characters and their names, I can't help but think it may be related in this sense even if it's slight. However, until we know more about his story I will continue to wonder about the true meaning of Coalhouse Walker's name and why this particular character is deserving of such name despite having no ties to the history we know. 

Comments

  1. Zachary's History as Fiction BlogJanuary 25, 2020 at 9:07 AM

    I find your post interesting and agree that the name "Coalhouse Walker" has two purposes. First, Doctorow means to emphasize Coalhouse as a historical character. Throughout the novel, Doctorow treats Coalhouse like he is a real historical figure, which is interesting as the line between history and fiction is consistently blurred throughout the novel--we see real and fake characters interacting together and learning from one another. Doctorow specifically hints at us to analyze Coalhouse as a historical failures, a cautionary tale that could really happen.

    The name Coalhouse is also meant to emphasize his "blackness." While Coalhouse completely ignores his race, and behaves as if he is not a Black man living in a racist, until he starts blowing up stuff, his race hangs over his head in the form of his name wherever he goes. In my opinion, Coalhouse makes a conscious effort to behave as if society is not racist. However, his race consistently negative affects his life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sarah H.January 30, 2020 at 8:01 PM

    While we discussed in class that the significance of the Michael Kolhass story in Ragtime, we didn't really explore the name Coalhouse and the possible reasoning of adding racial tensions to the original plot. Throughout the novel there is foreshadowing of the future, such as the feminist, civil right, and the occupy wall street movements and I think we can really see this in Coalhouse's story. After all he is willing to die to bring Conklin to justice and if we were to subtract his violent actions he is similar to the people who were willing to die during sit-ins and freedom rides.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

rufus-a lost cause?

I thought Kindred was by far one of the more captivating books we got to read this semester. The time travel element worked incredibly well with the heavy topic of slavery. when I first understood who Rufus was and became accustomed to what was happening, I was really interested in his character. I knew the book would follow his life and we would watch him turn into someone, but I didn't know who. Generally speaking, the theme of your environment shaping who you are is pretty prevalent throughout life, however, there are always the stories of people becoming the opposite of the environment and becoming "rebels". The part of me that wants a happy ending in every book was hoping Rufus would be the same way, but I knew there was no way he could completely transform. I even wondered for a second if Rufus' connection to Alice would be a love story and somehow Kindred would have a cheesy aspect to it. However, the biggest question I wondered was how impactful would one pe...
Read more

PT(ralfamadore)SD

During our discussions, we have talked about Tralfamadorians and their connection to both Billy and  Vonnegut's trauma. Originally reading this book I thought the sci-fi element was added purely for entertainment, or to add more to a story Vonnegut was having trouble writing. As we continued to unpack its mysteries, I saw how Tralfamdore was used to illustrate PTSD in a new light. During Billy's time travel, he is thrown from place to place, without choice. He is forced to relive each moment as if it were his first time experiencing this, unaware of the memory he is in. It has become clear that these moments of time travel mimic triggering memories of people with PTSD. Aside from the one moment Billy thinks about the trigger of the bar quartet and its connection with Dresden, time-traveling seems disconnected. I then began to think about Tralfamdore itself and how their idea of moments always existing fit in. The lack of free will humans experience could be thought of as th...
Read more

The Visit in Orange County

A short story about Maria. A Mexican girl living in Orange County California in 1947 NOTE : Since Spanish is my main character’s native language, her thoughts, dreams, and most of her conversations would be in Spanish. Every bold line of dialogue is meant to be written in Spanish, however, I kept everything mostly in English for people to easily understand what was going on. For reference, “Mija” is an endearing term for a daughter, it’s used frequently in the story. Here is a link to the story https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cqPzMQSCsvGNXcIA6KiWEBOvwKJth-NeBJpMKTgwbFg/edit?usp=sharing
Read more