Wait. Why is Houdini Here Again?

 Wait. Why is Houdini Here Again?

That is what I was wondering as the book rounded out – where did Houdini go for the last half of this book, and now why the *beep* is he hanging 12 stories in the air. He was thrown into the last chapter, I suppose to round the story out, but my inclinations say that there must be a deeper story or metaphor here. Those last few pages left me lingering with questions.

Just to recap, Houdini – famous historical character, performer to be remembered for centuries – is right now dangling by his feet primed for an epic escape. Once he got all bundled up in a straightjacket, the cable attached to his feet and on the other end a crane lifted him into the sky. This all happens seemingly quite randomly in about the last three pages of Ragtime. I didn't think much of it until earlier when I sat down and googled up the picture on the left. It made me feel a little bit uneasy, mostly because of its similarity to some other historical events.

If you put in the key words Houdini Hanging Escape some other images from his different events will pop up, some where you can see the crowd gathered below and him hanging quite lifelessly.

I think it is far to symbolic of lynchings. And at the very least shares too much resemblance to not be intentional at least at a subconscious level. 

E.L. Doctorow makes a lot of statements on racism throughout the book, especially through his fictional but incredibly real-seeming character Colehouse Walker. Colehouse gets stopped on the road and harassed by some firefighters, who then later vandalize his car (apparently worth the equivalent of several lives as acted upon later in the book). After the incident, and facing firsthand the system's inability to enact justice on white firefighters for a black man, Colehouse intentionally or not becomes the leader of a movement against racism through his revolutionary violence.

Houdini on the other hand was Doctorow’s character to comment about class, and – every word capitalized – The American Dream. Houdini is a classist immigrant who makes it big. He comes from a Jewish background, and finds his self-made fortune through escape artistry. 

Throughout the entire book E. L. Doctorow creates this tension through Houdini’s character, of white upper class attitudes to lower classes and of Houdini constant dehumanization by being made an entertainer (not an artist) for them.

In one of the first few chapters of the book, Houdini performs an escape from a jail, conveniently across from Harry K. Thaw who was considered the case of the century for publicly murdering a supposed lover of Evelyn Nesbit. Houdini’s escape was performed nearly nude as to prove to audiences the tricks that were indeed not hidden up his sleeve (because it was under his foot). After he escaped and got dressed, Harry K. Thaw – in a cell with a table set for fine dining – got undressed and mocked him obscenely.

On the next page Doctorow reaches into Houdini’s brain to summarize for him, “People who did not respond to his art profoundly distressed Houdini. He had come to realize they were invariably of the upper class. Always they broke through the pretense of his life and made him feel foolish” (31). If Houdini is framed as this perfect reflection of the American ideal, and he is constantly made by the upper class to feel foolish, what is it that Ragtime is really saying here? Probably something along the lines of the true rubbish our American ideals are – work hard as in become nothing but a plaything – and how the rich people just manipulate everybody else like they are puppets. I would pin Doctorow as an anarchist, but at the very least somebody who wants to scream out loud that the system sucks. The rich celebrate Houdini for demonstrating their patriotic ideals, while simultaneously mocking him and also ignoring thousands of other immigrants working exploitative jobs at a low wage.

Ragtime drops Houdini's story to follow Colehouse Walker struggles and bomb-throwing, which shake out to inspire little real change anywhere. Thrown in those few hundred page Houdini got really into all of his little gadgets – which I thought was also a bit weird but seemed to help him find a bit of contentment. 

Later Colehouse dies in front of a fire squad, and then soon after Doctorow brings Houdini back to be hung upside down for the entertainment of the white middle to upper class. 

Story resolved.

Say what? The natural resolution would be for Houdini to find real meaningful success and stick the middle finger up to the Man. That is the happy ending we want, but not what we get because Doctorow chooses here to stick to the real history. Nobody snapped a finger and stopped oppression or discrimination. His unending is a historically accurate true ending. Sure, I think we can find a little bit of resolution in Houdini's new slightly more satisfying successes with his gadgets, and Mother’s Younger Brothers continuation of Colehouse's fight – perhaps small changes are happening in a longer fight.

To quote directly from this climatic scene: “Houdini had been feeling better about himself lately. His grief for his mother, his fears of losing his audience, his suspicion that his life was unimportant and his achievements laughable–all the weight of daily concern seemed easier to bear. He attributed this to his new pursuit, the unmasking of spirit fraud wherever he found it” (E. L. Doctorow 314). Houdini never finds meaningful change or freedom but rather finds his situation laughable and somewhat cope-able.

Does Houdini really escape (taken either figuratively or literally)?

From what I can tell, Houdini is left hanging by his ankles over a hundred feet in the hair – quite literally. That is where his story ends, before one final thought of Houdini’s of a boy staring into his reflection on a headlamp of an automobile (still hanging) (E. L. Doctorow 316). Which is probably another connection back to Colehouse I don’t understand.

Anway, in the very last sentence of the book we see Harry K. Thaw walking free. Doctorow's final punch, straight to the gut.