"Brother"

Throughout Doctorow's Ragtime, the character of Younger Brother plays an important role in connecting the different worlds that Doctorow has created. Younger brother has a presence throughout the novel that cannot be ignored. From the beginning he is an allusive and mysterious member of the New Rochelle family but he branches out beyond the family and becomes part of the snippets of other stories that Doctorw gives us. Such as becoming Evelyn Nesbit's lover and eventually a fan of Emma Goldman anarchist ideas. Later on, younger brother becomes deeply intertwined with Coalhouse Walker and his story.

Coalhouse walker also connects several of the different character plots. When he "captures" J.P. Morgan's library, he is also bringing Morgan and those affiliated with him back into the picture. Along with being a means of helping all of the smaller meta-narratives come together, there are several parallells between younger brother and coalhouse walker. Both have loved a woman of whom they have lost due to circumstances out of their control. They also both see apparent problems in the justice system and how society functions (Younger Brother is influenced heavily by Emma Goldman's teachings).

It could be argued that Younger Brother becomes a follower of Coalhouse in part because of the similarities between them (since Doctorow does not explicitly mention their parallels, perhaps it is a subconscious understanding).

The novel really starts heating up (pun noted) when Coalhouse sets off an explosion at the fire station and begins killing other firemen with no differentiation. Before this event, Younger Brother has been a meek sort of character that has not yet found himself, but is exploring outside the bounds of the "safety" of the New Rochelle middle class society. After Coalhouse's first strike, there is a crucial scene between Father and Younger Brother where they get into a heated discussion over the justifications of what Coalhouse Walker has done.  In this scene, Doctorow refers to Younger Brother simply as "Brother." "Brother stood up so abruptly that his chair fell over." He then goes on to criticize the hypocritical statements that Father has just made. Perhaps Doctorow did not have a particular reason for dropping "Younger" from Brother's title, but it helps to show that in this key scene Brother is moving away from his relatives and becoming his own person.

Brother goes on to join Coalhouse, becoming a follower again but of a different kind. Then he goes off on his own and wanders without a desired outcome. He never truly finds himself in the sort of situation where he believes in something strongly enough to stand up against what he knows. He stays titled as "Younger Brother," symbolically showing that his moment of self-actualization has passed. He finds himself in the throngs of the Mexican Revolution fighting for causes more because of the fight than his belief in the cause itself. The end for Younger Brother is a slightly more positive one because he seems to have found another outlet for his skills and even shows his own leadership in leading guerrilla raids. "He was respected by the zapatistas but was thought also to be reckless" (Doctorow 305). It is with a positive note that Younger Brother has earned himself respect, but also sad that his recklessness stems from loosing everything (and thus having nothing to loose).

It would be absurd to claim that Doctorow's Ragtime is about one thing. However, in light of Younger Brother's story I think it is fair to say that the theme of pushing, breaking away from, and finding ways around the constraints of society is a key element in this novel.