Father as a "Hawk"

The end of E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime shows the beginning of World War One, and perhaps compares it to the contemporary war in Vietnam that raged in Southeast Asia while the book was being written. Doctorow portrays the beginning of World War One as a popular war throughout the United States, as the population felt that Wilson wasn’t being aggressive enough in his involvement in the war in Europe. Doctorow uses Father, his manifestation of the middle class average American, to show this attitude towards the war. “With the onset of the Great War in Europe he was one of those who feared Woodrow Wilson’s lack of fighting spirit and was openly for preparedness before it became the official view of the Administration.” (318) Doctorow uses Father as an allusion to the pro-war sentiment that brought America into World War One, a decision that most of the country would later regret. In the early 20s, most Americans realized that World War one was fought for little reason other than protecting U.S. economic investments in the U.K. This portrayal of Father shows Doctorow’s recognition of the error of war, something that can be applied to the time in which the story itself was written. Doctorow uses Father to represent the error of war not only in World War One, but in the contemporary Vietnam War. At the outset of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, the American population was almost fully behind the war, with the majority of Americans considering themselves pro-war “hawks.” This desire for battle in the American people of the early 1960s is reciprocated in the pro-war feelings portrayed by Doctorow through Father in Ragtime. However, as the American people turned on World War One after it ended, the American people tired of the war in Vietnam and eventually the U.S. withdrew in shame. Doctorow’s Ragtime, a story of America in the early 20th century, also tells the story of a war contemporary to the time in which it was written.

Bibliography:

"Vietnam." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 16 May. 2011. .

"World War I." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 16 May. 2011. .

Paul, Boyer. "The Liberal Era, 1960-1968." The Enduring Vision: A History of the
American People. 6th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2010.
662-683. Print.