Tateh's Transformation from Radical Socialist to Typical Capitalist

Tateh's Transformation from Radical Socialist to Typical Capitalist



    One of the most interesting characters in E.L Doctrow’s Ragtime (in my opinion) is Tateh. This is a character that embodies the struggles of the immigrant experience during the 20th century in America, and later a success story of the American Dream. As we are first introduced to Tateh, he is found working on the street. He works day and night tirelessly as an artist to support his daughter, “His hair has turned white in the last month. He is thirty-two years old.” (Doctorow 43).

    At first, Tateh takes pride in doing hard work: he refuses to take handouts from Evelyn, instead insisting on only being paid for his work, and drawing her portrait. In this way, Tateh embodies his perceptions of hard work and ultimately his socialist values. His role as president of Socialist Artists’ Alliance underscores his commitment to hard work and struggle. At this stage in the book, Tateh’s worldview is defined by moral rigidity, and faith in socialism as a means of confronting exploitation.

    A major cause of Tateh’s shift in moral perspective is not just his own ambitions, but his devotion to his daughter. From the beginning, he works from hours on end to keep her alive, but he can’t bear the thought of her growing up in poverty. After the union won the strike, but only won a few extra cents per hour, “Tateh began to conceive of his life as separate from the fate of the working class.” (Doctorow 131). When he sees the limited and oppressive success of the factory work, Tateh’s belief in socialism starts to waver, and Tateh begins to envision a better future for himself and his daughter: However, not solidarity and socialism, but through personal reinvention and entrepreneurial ambition.

    Tateh’s invention of the moving picture books is what eventually accelerates his departure from socialism and his embrace of capitalism. And indeed, what leads to this event is also his daughter: what begins as an act of love, creating stories for his daughter, becomes the seed of his eventual success. By capitalising on this idea, Tateh leaves behind the streets where he used to work and reinvents himself as Baron Ashkenazzy. After selling his first moving picture book: “Come, Tateh said to his child, we’ll find a boardinghouse in a good neighborhood and then we’ll have ourselves a meal and a hot bath” (Doctorow 133). By doing this, the one radical Tateh abandons his association with his past and the exploited working class just to embrace the capitalist system he once denounced.

    Alongside his political and economic transformation, Tateh undergoes a personal and moral shift. At the beginning of Ragtime, Tateh has very rigid morals: he banishes his wife after her exploitation by her boss and abandons Nesbit after finding out her true identity. However, at the end of the story, Tateh even marries Mother just a year after Father’s death. By doing this, he provides the girl with a mother figure, having her grow up safe, healthy, and far removed from the long ago suffering of immigrant poverty. His marriage to Mother shows a change in Tateh’s morals: much looser and more willing to conform to his new capitalist life. The socialist radical who once saw the wealthy as enemies married into a family that embodies capitalism.







Works Cited:


Doctorow, E. L. Ragtime. Random House, 2007.