Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime"
    A Study Guide for E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime"
    A Study Guide for E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime"
    Ebook41 pages37 minutes

    A Study Guide for E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 27, 2016
    ISBN9781535831758
    A Study Guide for E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime"

    Related ebooks

    Teaching Methods & Materials For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      A Note From Our CEO

      Jan 20, 2023

      A Note From Our CEO
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Mirror of Erised: On Death, Harry Potter, and Retreating to Childhood Reads

      Aug 16, 2018

      I’d known Monica 20 years when her sister was killed in a hit-and-run motorcycle accident. We spent our childhoods in a tiny Bay Area town that I left at 14. I only went back to visit twice. In the years between, Monica and I sent each other videos,

      4 min read

    • Article

      Paul McCartney To Publish 900-page Lyrical 'Autobiography'

      Feb 24, 2021

      It will be “as close to an autobiography” as Paul McCartney “may ever come”: the former Beatle is set to publish The Lyrics, a deep dive into his life, based on conversations he had with the prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon. The Lyrics, a two-volume,

      2 min read

    • Article

      HOW I WRITE Maggie O’Farrell

      Mar 5, 2020

      Maggie O’Farrell is the author of seven books, including The Hand That First Held Mine , which won a Costa Book Award. Her latest historical novel,  Hamnet, is the thrilling story behind Shakespeare’s famous play. Nothing prepared me for how disorie

      1 min read

    • Article

      'Slings & Arrows' Made Shakespeare Must-see TV. The Prequel Sounds Just As Delightful

      Nov 6, 2019

      If there's no business like show business, and there is no playwright like Shakespeare, then it stands to reason - and is, in fact, a fact - that there's no series like "Slings & Arrows," a gorgeous Canadian import from the first decade of this centu

      7 min read

    • Article

      Will There Ever Be Another Writer Like Philip Roth?

      May 23, 2018

      I first discovered Philip Roth at age fifteen. My parents, bless them, placed Goodbye, Columbus in my hands. Having grown up in the suburbs of Detroit—the rock-ribbed WASP enclave of Grosse Pointe—I found him exotic, thrilling. His audacity staggered

      2 min read

    • Article

      Vision Man

      May 17, 2021

      Vision Man
      4 min read

    • Article

      Clarence Page: The Age-old Trick Of ‘Passing’: Fiction Writer The Latest To Be Disgraced By Lies About Heritage

      Mar 20, 2023

      I have never known a man who faked his own death, but I have known a man who faked his own life, then sadly failed to live long enough for us to talk about it. I’m talking about the late Hache Carrillo, a rising, award-winning literary talent whose r

      3 min read

    • Article

      Books Of The Year

      Dec 22, 2021

      In 1932, eccentric art patron Mabel Dodge Luhan hosted DH Lawrence in her mansion, located at the Taos art colony she had founded to further the spread (and it must be said, exoticize) of Native American art. As DH Lawrence is wont to do, the visit w

      3 min read

    • Article

      From the Editor

      Jul 29, 2019

      From the Editor
      5 min read

    • Article

      Icons

      Apr 14, 2023

      Icons
      10 min read

    • Article

      Icons

      Apr 15, 2023

      Icons
      10 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Aug 22, 2022

      Books
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime" - Gale

      2

      Ragtime

      E. L. Doctorow

      1975

      Introduction

      It often seems that there is a competition between popular literature and artistic literature, with each one claiming the right to call itself the greater benefit to society. Ragtime is one of the few novels that transcends this competition completely, having proven itself with undeniable success in both areas. Some critics have picked out miscellaneous faults, but the novel was received with widespread praise when it was published in 1975. Most reviewers agreed that Doctorow took the combination of historical and imaginary characters, a technique used often in historical novels but with only weak results, and manipulated it into a rich blend that is entertaining, challenging, and true to the spirit of the times. The reading public agreed: unlike many experimental works of art whose freshness makes them too difficult for widespread audiences, Ragtime became a best-seller in its initial hardcover edition. For a period of time in the mid-seventies, it seemed there was a copy in every home. E. L. Doctorow became a household name, and each new book he releases to this day is still considered a significant literary event, although it would be unreal to think that an event like Ragtime could occur more than once in one writer's lifetime. The novel's influence on popular culture continues today; it was adapted into a major Broadway musical in the late 1990s.

      Author Biography

      Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was born in the Bronx, in New York City, in 1931. Both of his par-ents were children of Russian Jewish immigrants, and the Jewish faith has been a powerful influence on his life and writing. He attended Brand High School of Science and then went on to Kenyon College in Ohio, which had a reputation as a good school for writers: while there, he studied under the poet John Crowe Ransom and met other writers who either were or would be famous. After receiving an A.B. in philosophy in 1952, he attended Columbia University in New York for a year, but then was drafted, and he spent the next two years in the army. Returning to civilian life, he married and worked a series of odd jobs, including reading novels for CBS Television and Columbia Pictures: I was reading a book a day, seven days a week, and writing synopses of them, he told an interviewer years later. I suppose each synopsis was no less than 1,200 words. I was getting an average of ten or twelve dollars a book, so I was making pretty good money—anywhere between seventy and one hundred dollars a week. In 1959 he started at New American Library, where in the next five years, he worked his way up to senior editor; his first novel,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1