Father Goes to the Ballpark

In Chapter 30 of E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, the Father takes his son to a baseball game. The son is truly eager about going, and you can tell he’s a big fan of the game. When someone asks him who is pitching, he replies “Rube Marquard, He’s won his last three chances.”(Doctorow 227) Father on the other hand did not seem excited to go. Doctorow used diction to show that even before the game begins, the father is not excited to be at the game.

Because of his expedition to the Arctic, Father obviously hadn’t seen a baseball game for years. Doctorow uses the game as a literary tool to symbolize the changes in America during Father’s absence. The thing he most despised about this “new” baseball was the number of immigrants that played on each team. As we know, the early 1900s immigration spiked as shown in figure 1. Father’s disgust was not uncommon for conservative thinkers at this time.

Doctorow uses language to show Ffather’s concern for the changes that have taken place in baseball, as well as the changes that have taken place in the country as a whole. Doctorow says that the “cavern of air in which he sat pressed upon (him)as if by a foul universe.” (231) The father views the stadium, as crowded, uncomfortable, filled with rude drunk fans screaming their heads off. This reflects his view of America. Father has always been a traditional conservative thinker. He is incompetent when it comes to dealing with change.

One of the things that disturbs Father the most, is the scoreboard. When father saw the man that “went along a scaffold and hung the appropriate marked shingles that summarized the action” he “sunk into his chair”(231) in disappointment. This represents his view towards the rapidly changing technology of the time. The early 1900s was a time of innovation. Not only were new devices invented everyday, but electronics were also becoming more and more available to common people. Traditional Father wants no part in this.

The reason Doctorow puts this chapter in Ragtime is because this passage serves the role of expressing to the readers, not only a view on one of the major themes in the novel, immigration, but to show the view of Father, and how he feels about the rapidly changing America.

By Tabor Edwards

"Marquard, Rube." National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. N.p., n.d. . 19

May 2011. .

Ritter, Lawrence S. The Glory of Thier Times. N.p.: n.p., September 1966. Print.

"Immigration to the United States." American History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?

ItemID=WE52&iPin=AMHC0439&SingleRecord=True (accessed May 19, 2011).