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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ragtime, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The American Dream
Replication and Transformation
Freedom, Human Dignity, and Justice
The Cult of Celebrity
Women’s Roles
Social Inequities
Summary
Analysis
Every day throughout the long, dark, polar winter, Father writes a letter to Mother in his journal to pass the time when he’s not practicing with the dog teams or building igloos. These and other elements of the Peary’s carefully constructed system are appropriated wholesale from the Indigenous people who live in Greenland. Nevertheless, Peary considers the Inuit members of the expedition as childlike and primitive, and Father tends to agree.
Instead of finding the novelty he experiences on the voyage exciting, or at the very least stimulating, Father finds it bothersome. Notably, he recognizes Peary’s racist exploitation of his Indigenous guides’ knowledge and sees that this rises from Peary’s sense of superiority (which a modern reader might label white supremacist thinking). But he still agrees. Even though the Inuit ways are superior and suited to this environment, Father still judges them “uncivilized.”
Themes
Whole Inuit families live on the Roosevelt, and Father has watched some of the couples having sex, which he thinks they do indiscreetly. One day, while observing a couple, Father notices that the woman, in addition to making loud and appreciative noises, thrusts her hips upward toward her partner. The fact that this uninhibited woman and the scrupulously discreet Mother share a common female identity bothers him.
Father’s retrograde attitudes come into the sharpest focus in the arena of sex. He is both fascinated (he is watching, after all) and repulsed by the pleasure the Inuit women take in intercourse, preferring Mother’s aloof Victorian gentility. This section strongly implies that their attitudes toward sex (which, notably, are far more aligned with modern ones) are part of what makes the Inuit seem uncivilized in Father’s eyes.
Themes
Peary’s most trusted associate is a Black man named Matthew Henson. The day before the teams set out across the ice for the Pole, Father, Matthew and three Indigenous guides collect birds and bird’s eggs from a nearby colony. Father watches with fascination as the Indigenous men dispatch tiny auk with a single, swift squeeze to their delicate chests, crushing their hearts. On the way back, Henson expresses confidence that Peary will choose him as his companion for the Pole discovery. This is a reasonable assumption, as Henson has accompanied Peary on previous expeditions. But Father still resents the Black man for making it.
It also distresses Father that a white man would treat a Black man with as much deference and respect as Peary shows to Henson. Father harbors racist sentiments toward his fellow non-white Americans that are almost as harsh as his judgments of the Inuit guides who serve the expedition’s needs and desires. The book continues to use Father as an example of a traditional worldview. But Henson’s fame and public profile suggest that the world is changing around Father, albeit incrementally.
Themes
Peary organizes the expedition into support teams, each of which is responsible for breaking part of the trail to the pole. Peary follows along, saving his energy for the final push. After a few days, each team is sent back in turn to the Roosevelt. Father goes back early, having demonstrated an unfortunate tendency to develop frostbite. But Peary does take an American flag, made by Father’s company for the occasion, and plants it in the ground on the day he locates the Pole.
Peary’s expedition replicates in miniature the shape of American society: a lot of people work very hard at backbreaking labor to support the success of the few lucky enough to find themselves at the top of the social, economic, and political hierarchies. Notably, in a meritocracy—a system in which people are rewarded according to their practical skills—Father doesn’t come out looking very successful. No wonder he longs to return home to America, where he doesn’t have to work too hard to maintain his privilege.
Themes
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