Forrest Gump x Ragtime
In the popular film Forrest Gump, a fictional young man named Forrest travels through the world, bumping into various historical events along the way. Whilst reading Ragtime, I noticed Doctorow inserting fictional characters into real historical situations. The most interesting example of this was towards the end of the book in part four. Doctorow has seemingly ended the plot of the book with Coalhouse's death, yet he continues with the narrative of Mother's Younger Brother. After he is gifted Coalhouse's newly restored Model T, he embarks on a road trip that lands him in the middle of the Mexican Revolution. MYB uses his knowledge of explosives to aid Pancho Villa and later Emiliano Zapata in their revolutionary endeavors. Similarly, in the movie Forest Gump, Forrest, who is a fictional character, also embarks on a journey that lands him in the middle of several important historical events like the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. In class, the point was