Research on Transportation in Ragtime

Abstract

E.L. Doctorow's Historiographic Metafiction Ragtime is studied from the narrative function of transportation, the various significances in the writing of Postmodern Literature on transportation is explored. Trains are both path for social mobility and the American dream and reveal the alienation and disillusionment of the modern subject, ships not only carry the logic of imperialism and capital expansion but also embody global hegemony and cultural plunder, cars, as products of modern industrial production, reflect racial plight and dignity demand. The novel revealed the contradictions and crises behind the myth of mobility through three types of representative transportation, reflected the multidimensional complexity of history, society, and politics, and embodied postmodernism's questioning and deconstruction for grand historical narratives.