Ragtime's Commentary on the Affluent
You are living on the streets inside of a cardboard box, your clothes are tattered, and you walk place to place in search of a meal. Then, one night, as you're aimlessly journeying through the city, you come across a building and you see wealthy people dressed like yourself. The concept of wealthy people dressing up as poor people and dancing to honor the low-class is interesting. The novel Ragtime does a good job in representing the fixation that rich people have for poor people and it can be seen through the poverty balls talked about in chapter six of Ragtime . The idea of poverty balls is introduced in chapter six when a character named Freud was expressing his disapproval of American society. Poverty balls are events held at palaces where guests come dressed in rags and eat from tin plates and drink from tin mugs. Poverty balls are made to resemble to dirt farms. The interesting part about poverty balls is how they raise 'proceeds' for charity. On page 4...