Father's experience with postmoderism
There is no doubt that E. L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime is a post modernist work, and one of the key elements of post modernism is the idea that there are many equally valid ways of viewing reality. Often, when someone settles down in life, they stop seeing alternative viewpoints and settle on their own version of reality. When that person then makes a major life change, they are exposed to other realities and they have to question which one they will accept as true. Doctorow introduces a major life change for father when he returns home from his arctic expedition. By doing this, he challenges many of the assumptions that father had accepted as facts. For example, father had always thought of himself as a strong man, the most important person in the household. When he is wandering through the house, both of these notions are challenged. He finds that mother had taken over business operations, workers had unionized, and that the business had actually grown despite his hiatus. His p...