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Postmodernism and Ragtime

 Ragtime seems to carry all the traits of a postmodernist novel. Many of these characteristics we have discussed in class, such as the manipulation of historical characters and events - examples being Houdini and Ford. This leads to the following question - are these characters the same as their real-life counterparts, or are they completely different people? In essence, where do they fall in terms of being history or fiction? As an example, let's examine Ford. We know for a fact that Ford existed in real life, and he shares many of the same characteristics of Ford in the novel. In fact, he shares enough similarities and the time period is similar enough for most people to claim they are the same person. However, his meeting with Morgan is not something that is documented in history. It almost certainly did not happen. So one could claim that these are not the same people, and that the Ford of the novel is a separate character who shares many of the same attributes as the real Ford. And in a way, this does seem like a very postmodernist idea. It challenges the reality of who these people are, and whether we are seeing an authentic representation of them. It also brings in a philosophical point - if two people share the same name, characteristics, appearances, and are identical in every way besides a single encounter they have - which technically hasn't been disproved from happening in the real world - are they the same person? Personally, I would say that they are separate people. Lack of evidence against the existence of a certain event is not proof that the event occurred. 

This post was kind of all over the place, but in summary, I think that the "historical characters" are just as fictional as all the other characters in the novel, and represent part of the postmodernist aspect of Ragtime.

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