Not so idiotic after all

"...She was checked in her response, which was to condemn him for an idiot..." ~Ragtime page 226.

Sometimes Father looks like an idiot. It is just a fact. Depending on how you interpret "idiot" you might think I'm saying he seems not very intelligent or not very authoritative or just bumbling and foolish. And I mean all of those things.

Father's trip to the North Pole, or his part on Peary's journey to the pole, is really not the most impressive adventure. In that scene he comes off a little bumbling and non-authoritative. He's just a weaker link on the mission, sent back as soon as possible while the real men go on to the pole.

Father's awkward request for "coon songs" from Coalhouse Walker makes him seem somewhat foolish and socially un-intelligent. He is a little bit insulting, a little bit demeaning, but seems mostly just ignorant of what is socially acceptable.

And of course, there is Father's brilliant idea of taking the boy to a baseball game which provokes the above response from Mother. To clarify, she does check her impulse to call him an idiot, but you get the idea that it was a natural and fitting response to this idea. The baseball game has trouble written all over it for the father-son relationship. Actually, it turns out better than I anticipated, but all these scenes help create an idea in the reader's mind that Father is kind of an innocent idiot. He doesn't seem malicious, totally brainless, or reckless. Just sometimes foolish.

This set up then makes the end of Part III very interesting as Father looks like a voice of reason, a figure with authority and guts, a true mediator, not an idiot at all.

I think part of this comes from a reader's desire for the conflict in the book to be resolved. Readers don't want Coalhouse to blow up Morgan's collection; they don't want the Attorney General to have his way.

No, readers are looking for an ending to the drama, a satisfactory conclusion to the strife. So Father looks very clever, or at least strong and well-intentioned, as he tries to mediate between the two sides carrying messages back and forth. He wants to de-escalate the situation, which has the affect of making him appear more mature and reasonable than Younger Brother with his ideas of a revolution and violent approach to resolution.

And not only Father benefits from this, Coalhouse does too as he walks out into the rows of police and guards. Coalhouse is ready for an end to the conflict and for evident justice. He gets his car, and he trades the life of Conklin for the lives of his gang. So then he calmly turns himself over, knowing it would be death. Notice that Coalhouse, for all the violent acts he commits, doesn't come off as violent. Younger Brother seems violent. Coalhouse just seems to be in search of justice which is a form of reconciliation and restoration of things to their proper state. And if justice means he must die, then let justice be served.

So the two men who throughout the book have instances where they look idiotic (or insane in Coalhouse's case) in the final crisis come through as the most intelligent, well reasoned, respectable characters. I guess they aren't such idiots after all.