Ragtime Music
Ragtime music casts a symbolic spell over the entire novel. Not just the entire narrative, even the very sentence structure which describes that narrative. Despite the way that it is often played, ragtime is not intended to be played at a fast rhythm. The same goes for the novel; it is meant to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace. The pacing of ragtime is directly tied to the period setting of the novel. The turn of the century just assembly lines, automobiles, movies and jazz music were about to quicken the pace of American life forever.
Evelyn Nesbit
In keeping with the novel’s thematic exploration of how America is poised on the brink of fundamental changes and evolution that is going to make the ragtime era forever archaic. Nesbit is a symbol of an element that has become even prevalent since the publication of the novel. In a novel famously filled with actual historical figures, Nesbit is the character who comes to symbolic the Cult of Celebrity. A historical case can certainly support the argument that Nesbit became one of the first—if not the very first—American to become famous simply for being infamous and not for actually doing anything. She represents another change about to come related to the pace of lifestyle: overnight fame and the broad influence it wields.
Model T
The Model T is arguably the second most important symbol in the novel behind ragtime music. It is representative of many aspects at play in the novel’s analysis of the transformation of America at a particular point in time. The automobile changes everything about America while the assembly line technique for building it changes everything about the workplace in America. As a symbol of a certain amount of financial independence, ownership also carries implications of class and status and that aspect of the Model T becomes a turning point in the narrative.
Pyramid
J.P. Morgan is the symbol of American wealth gone mad. He is the epitome of the Gilded Age robber barons who accumulated wealth on a legendary scale and thought of themselves as special. Better than others. He is at the top of the economic pyramid and creates an exclusive club called the Great Pyramid and is drawn to the Egyptian pyramids as if he is some sort of pharaoh. But his world is about to be over just like ragtime as Ford—also a member of the club is helping to democratize wealth in America. That democratization is realized more personally for Morgan in another essential symbol of the novel, however, in a way that makes Morgan as relevant as a mummy lost inside a forgotten chamber in an ancient pyramid.
Coalhouse Walker
Ragtime and Coalhouse Walker are inextricably linked, but they are not equitable symbols. Ragtime music is about a certain pace and a certain time that is about to disappear forever. Coalhouse Walker is a symbol of a future that may be deferred, but will not be denied. His occupation of J.P. Morgan’s library stems directly from racist attack upon for doing nothing more than owning and driving a Model T. The juxtaposition of Walker’s “terrorist” occupation of the rich man’s library with Morgan’s anticlimactic death following a disappointing visit to the Egyptian pyramids is the novel’s central link between the past and the future. It portrays a present filled with tension, uncertainty and a sense of the inevitability of change.
