The Victorian Era is synonymous with being uptight. No one talked about sex. Everyone buttoned up: men wore stuffy wool clothes despite the heat, and women wore so many petticoats they looked like parachutes.
Ragtime portrays the era immediately after the Victorian Era when people still had all kinds of hang-ups even though things had gotten slightly more relaxed. There's lots of confusion about what is sexually proper in this novel, and people act out sexually in a variety of kinky ways. All this points to a slightly skewed (and repressed) obsession with sex: people ain't living in the Victorian Era any more, but they sure haven't reached the freedom of the roaring 1920s.
Questions About Repression
- How does Father view the Eskimos, and how are his views hypocritical?
- Why does Evelyn Nesbit put up with Harry K. Thaw's abuse, and why she does testify at his trial?
- How does clothing symbolize repression?
- Does Father's sexual repression ever improve during the novel?
Chew on This
When women act badly in Ragtime, it is a direct result of the sexually repressive era they live in.
Ragtime goes out of style after 1918 as America embraces jazz and an even less repressed society.