Real People In Fiction

E.L. Doctorow use of real characters give his stories and foot hold in time and place. It makes it more believable tot he reader to identify the period of time in which the action takes place. In Ragtime these "characters" are given fictitious lines and actions but not all that transpires is false. If it were then the story would lack a certain authority that Doctorow creates with such character usage. In one thread of the storyline the characters(As pictured from left to right) Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, and Harry Thaw are used. These characters were not only real but really famous, infamous even. Harry Thaw had murdered Stanford White. His trial would be proclaimed, "The Trial of The Century," but the 20th Century had just begun. The story really begins with Evelyn Nesbit who was the "It Girl" of the early 1900s. She was an actress, model, and Gibson Girl. She was barely 16 years old when she had first met Stanford White. Stanford White was an architect and very wealthy. There was an affair between them in which it was said that White drugged the young Nesbit and did horrible sexual and abusive acts to her. Later she retold these tales to her new lover and soon-to-be husband Harry K. Thaw. Thaw was a millionaire for Pittsburgh and was know to have a wild temper. After hearing these stories from Evelyn he shot Stanford White on top of Madison Square Garden's rooftop restaurant. He would later be tried; then re-tried and found guilty by reason of insanity. Then even after an escape from an instituion of the insane he was found sane and released. Doctorow uses this true story not only because of its noterity in the time period but because it actually happened thereby linking the other characters and stories in Ragtime to a real pinpoint time period in AMerica history.