E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime and the Rise of Women's Liberation One of the central themes of E.L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime is the tranformation of the leading female charactes of the novel from stereotypical repressed Victorian women into liberated and even feminist heroines. Doctorow's choice of the women's movement as a theme is appropriate to the period of his novel, which is set in the decade between l906 and l9l5. This was an heroic …showed first 75 words of 2596 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2596 total…had lost her looks and fallen into obscurity." But out of their struggle, the first real women's victories were gained. Bibliography Chafe, William H. The American Woman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. Decter, Midge. The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation. New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, l972. Doctorow, E. L. Ragtime. New York: Bantam Books, l975. Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. New York: Dell, l972. __________. Crimes of Passion. New York: Crescent Books, l975.