This study examines problems of escape in the fictional writings of E. L. Doctorow. It makes clear that the characters in the stories as well as their creator frequently try to break free from restrictions or control--the protagonists physically, the author more theoretically. A description of the nature of the confinements as well as the difficulties associated with getting away reveals much about Doctorow's perception of 20th century American reality and the writer's place in it. Thus, the study moves from a relatively straightforward assessment of the kinds of escape featured in Doctorow's narratives and the way in which these are justified to a more complicated evaluation of Doctorow's situation as a writer in relation to his characters' predicaments and recent critical analyses of his prose.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2000. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 112 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-112).

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I designed the costumes for Ragtime by Terrance McNally in the McLeod Theatre, Fall Semester 2013 for my thesis production. The musical Ragtime documents the beginning of a century in America where life is full of new possibilities- a time when immigrants are pouring into "the promised land" and the culture and face of American society is changing daily. This musical grips at the heart and soul of the audience because of the messages it instills about hope, possibility, and change at a time when almost anything seems possible. It centers on the lives of one White Anglo Saxon family, the courtship of a high class African American man and his fiancée who dies in the pursuit of justice, and the struggle of a socialist immigrant who wants to make a life suitable for his daughter and himself. I chose to reflect the differences among or across these three groups of people to heighten the message presented in the script. Chapter 1 describes my research and analysis of the musical including initial design ideas and character analysis. Chapters 2 through 4 focus on the process from design, to build, to production. Chapter 5 culminates in my evaluation with self reflection and comments from my committee on the production and process. The Appendices includes character plot, construction and execution paperwork, renderings and production photos.

In my dissertation I examine the steps in and performance of revolution through the writings of three Postmodern authors, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and E. L. Doctorow, in light of the model of the biblical Exodus journey and the revolution which precipitated that movement. I suggest that the revolution which began with the Israelites' bondage in Egypt has provided the foundation for American literature. I show that Invisible Man, Beloved, and Ragtime not only employ the motif of the Exodus journey; they also perpetuate the silent revolution begun by the Israelites while held captive in Egypt. This dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter One provides the introduction to the project. Chapter Two provides the model for this study by defining the characteristics of the Exodus journey, Moses as the leader of the Israelites, and the pattern of revolution established by Michael Walzer in Exodus and Revolution. In Chapters Three, Four, and Five, I apply the model established in Chapter Two to the individual texts. In Chapter Six, I draw three conclusions which arise from my study. My first conclusion is that the master story of the Exodus journey and the Israelites' liberation from Egypt informs all Western literaturewhether the literature reinforces the centrality of the master story to our lives or whether the literature refutes the significance of the master story. Second, the stages of revolution present in the biblical Exodus are also present in twentieth-century American literature. My third conclusion is that authors whose works deal with an exploration of the past in order to effect healing are authors who are revolutionary because their goal is to encourage revolution by motivating readers to refuse to accept the status quo and to, instead, join the revolution which demands change. They do this by asking questions which are characteristic of that which is postmodernnot so much looking for answers as demonstrating that questioning what is, is appropriate and necessary.

As obras do escritor norte-americano Edgar Lawrence Doctorow aqui estudadas desenham um panorama criticamente iluminador da história dos Estados Unidos no século XX. Em The Book of Daniel, acompanhamos a trajetória da Esquerda americana dos anos 30 aos anos 60. Em Ragtime, o cenário histórico é a Belle Époque e a era do ragtime, do começo do século XX até a Primeira Guerra Mundial. Em Homer & Langley, o arco temporal se expande para abrigar grande parte do século da Primeira Guerra aos anos 80. Nos três romances há uma dialética entre o impulso de suscitar conexões e de figurar um quadro histórico e social mais amplo e a dificuldade de se realizar esse projeto por meio da própria linguagem e lógica da fragmentação, que impedem as articulações e emperram a representação. Nessa tese, procuro ler as ambiguidades e hesitações da forma nesses três romances como incertezas produtivas potenciais lições para o pensamento crítico contemporâneo, o qual tateia certezas num mundo em crise. Romances como Ragtime, The Book of Daniel e Homer & Langley são animados mais por uma hermenêutica da concretude do que por uma poética da relativização. A análise das estratégias de figuração do material histórico que compõe essas obras mostra como essas três narrativas revigoram o romance histórico na contemporaneidade / The novels by E. L. Doctorow studied here draw a critically illuminating panorama of American History in the 20th century. In The Book of Daniel, we follow the trajectory of the American Left from the thirties up to the sixties. In Ragtime, the historical scenery is the Belle Époque and the ragtime era, from the beginning of the century up to World War I. In Homer & Langley, the time frame is broadened to include almost the entire century from World War I up to de eighties. In those novels, we find a dialectical relationship between the impulse to bring forth connections and represent a larger social and historical picture, and the difficulty of achieving such a project through the very language and logic of fragmentation which obstructs the making of articulations and renders representation difficult. In this work, I try to read the ambiguities and hesitations of the form in those three novels as productive uncertainties potential lessons to contemporary critical thinking. Novels such as Ragtime, The Book of Daniel e Homer & Langley are animated more by a hermeneutics of the concrete than by a poetics of relativity. The analysis of the representational strategies those novels employ to depict the historical material from which they are made shows how those narratives reinvigorate the historical novel today

A problemática do narrador na teoria do romance aumenta à medida que as relações humanas se tornam mais complexas e abrangentes. Daí a importância de mostrar ao público o escritor norte-americano E.L. Doctorow e seu romance The Book of Daniel de 1971, uma vez que através da figura do narrador, neste romance, tem-se acesso às suas diferentes visões da História norte-americana. O sujeito no pós-modernismo (período em que o romance está inserido) perde a sua capacidade de organizar a narrativa de maneira homogênea, e esta assume, mais do que nunca, o caráter de narrativa fragmentária e de difícil vinculação com o tempo. Só resta, então, ter acesso a esta \"realidade\" histórica por meio de imagens e estereótipos proporcionados pelo narrador da história, daí o nosso interesse em mostrar como estas diferentes vozes da narração veiculam o conteúdo histórico pungente da narrativa, isto é, o comunismo dos anos 30 e 40 e a sua versão mais radical nos anos 60 e como isto pode contribuir para a discussão da relação entre narração e História. / The question of the narrator in the theory of the novel develops into a central issue as human relations become broader and more complex. Hence the importance of introducing to the readers the North-American writer E. L. Doctorow and his novel The Book of Daniel, written in 1971, in which, through the narrator, one is presented with his different views on the North American History. The subject in post-modernism (when the book was written) is no longer able to organize the narrative homogeneously, which becomes fragmentary and time problematic. Thus, this \"historical reality\" is only available through the images and stereotypes provided by the narrator, and our aim in this study is to show how these different voices (of the narrator) convey the historical content of the narrative, i.e, the comunism of the 30s and 40s, and its later radical version of the 60s, and how this analysis contributes to the discussion of the relationship between narration and History.

A problemática do narrador na teoria do romance aumenta à medida que as relações humanas se tornam mais complexas e abrangentes. Daí a importância de mostrar ao público o escritor norte-americano E.L. Doctorow e seu romance The Book of Daniel de 1971, uma vez que através da figura do narrador, neste romance, tem-se acesso às suas diferentes visões da História norte-americana. O sujeito no pós-modernismo (período em que o romance está inserido) perde a sua capacidade de organizar a narrativa de maneira homogênea, e esta assume, mais do que nunca, o caráter de narrativa fragmentária e de difícil vinculação com o tempo. Só resta, então, ter acesso a esta \"realidade\" histórica por meio de imagens e estereótipos proporcionados pelo narrador da história, daí o nosso interesse em mostrar como estas diferentes vozes da narração veiculam o conteúdo histórico pungente da narrativa, isto é, o comunismo dos anos 30 e 40 e a sua versão mais radical nos anos 60 e como isto pode contribuir para a discussão da relação entre narração e História. / The question of the narrator in the theory of the novel develops into a central issue as human relations become broader and more complex. Hence the importance of introducing to the readers the North-American writer E. L. Doctorow and his novel The Book of Daniel, written in 1971, in which, through the narrator, one is presented with his different views on the North American History. The subject in post-modernism (when the book was written) is no longer able to organize the narrative homogeneously, which becomes fragmentary and time problematic. Thus, this \"historical reality\" is only available through the images and stereotypes provided by the narrator, and our aim in this study is to show how these different voices (of the narrator) convey the historical content of the narrative, i.e, the comunism of the 30s and 40s, and its later radical version of the 60s, and how this analysis contributes to the discussion of the relationship between narration and History.

As obras do escritor norte-americano Edgar Lawrence Doctorow aqui estudadas desenham um panorama criticamente iluminador da história dos Estados Unidos no século XX. Em The Book of Daniel, acompanhamos a trajetória da Esquerda americana dos anos 30 aos anos 60. Em Ragtime, o cenário histórico é a Belle Époque e a era do ragtime, do começo do século XX até a Primeira Guerra Mundial. Em Homer & Langley, o arco temporal se expande para abrigar grande parte do século da Primeira Guerra aos anos 80. Nos três romances há uma dialética entre o impulso de suscitar conexões e de figurar um quadro histórico e social mais amplo e a dificuldade de se realizar esse projeto por meio da própria linguagem e lógica da fragmentação, que impedem as articulações e emperram a representação. Nessa tese, procuro ler as ambiguidades e hesitações da forma nesses três romances como incertezas produtivas potenciais lições para o pensamento crítico contemporâneo, o qual tateia certezas num mundo em crise. Romances como Ragtime, The Book of Daniel e Homer & Langley são animados mais por uma hermenêutica da concretude do que por uma poética da relativização. A análise das estratégias de figuração do material histórico que compõe essas obras mostra como essas três narrativas revigoram o romance histórico na contemporaneidade / The novels by E. L. Doctorow studied here draw a critically illuminating panorama of American History in the 20th century. In The Book of Daniel, we follow the trajectory of the American Left from the thirties up to the sixties. In Ragtime, the historical scenery is the Belle Époque and the ragtime era, from the beginning of the century up to World War I. In Homer & Langley, the time frame is broadened to include almost the entire century from World War I up to de eighties. In those novels, we find a dialectical relationship between the impulse to bring forth connections and represent a larger social and historical picture, and the difficulty of achieving such a project through the very language and logic of fragmentation which obstructs the making of articulations and renders representation difficult. In this work, I try to read the ambiguities and hesitations of the form in those three novels as productive uncertainties potential lessons to contemporary critical thinking. Novels such as Ragtime, The Book of Daniel e Homer & Langley are animated more by a hermeneutics of the concrete than by a poetics of relativity. The analysis of the representational strategies those novels employ to depict the historical material from which they are made shows how those narratives reinvigorate the historical novel today

This dissertation focuses on the interdependency between causality, context and history in selected novels by E.L. Doctorow: The Book of Daniel (1971), Ragtime (1974), Loon Lake (1980), World's Fair (1985) and The Waterworks (1995). Doctorow' s fiction is marked by an apparent paradox: while it underscores fictionalization and sometimes distorts late nineteenth and twentieth century American history, it simultaneously purports to be a valid representation of the past. The novelist's implementation of causality which is a significant component of "the power of freedom", constitutes fiction's ability to convey truth without relying on factuality or "the power of the regime". According to Doctorow, the documented fact is already an interpretation which induces the perception that all documentation is subjective. The author composes fictional contexts that disregard the pretence of reliability in non-fictional texts. Doctorow focuses on how contexts are formed: the contexts are usually defined through the experience of characters who have been exposed to an event or events that were generated by motivations, for example, emotions of fear, racism, conviction, desire and greed, i.e., the catalysts that form history. Each of the novels discussed focuses on various aspects of society and the fate of specific individuals. The Book of Daniel proposes that a human being can only survive physically and spiritually by remaining a social entity. Ragtime focuses on the persistent illusion in history that society is fragmented. The various "faces" of society encountered by the main character in Loon Lake, mirror one another and reflect spiritual poverty. Consequently, Loon Lake demonstrates that the search for personal fulfilment does not require a physical journey, but an inner or spiritual exploration. World's Fair postulates that reality is never exclusively defined by either fortune or misfortune alone. The Waterworks offers perhaps one of the most significant evaluations of history as it perceives that the world in which we live is essentially unknown to us. We have neither the practical means to obtain a total perspective of what occurs in society (especially among politicians and the financially powerful) nor do we have sufficient skills to distinguish what the motivations of individuals' actions really entail. / Thesis (M.A.) Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2000.