Blog 11 – Intertextual Elements

A similarity I found that is shared between Ragtime and In The Lake Of The Woods is how strong of an effect the need for acceptance and love can have on a person. In O’Brien’s story, John Wade became obsessed with the need to be loved. “Sometimes he did bad things just to be loved, and sometimes he hated himself for needing love so badly” (O’Brien 60). These ‘bad things’ that O’Brien writes includes extreme actions such as following (or as Wade coined it, spying) his wife, even before they were married. And because of his quenchless need to always feel loved, Wade was filled with terror at the thought of ever losing Kathy. It’s seems as though it is driving him to the point of insanity.

Parallel to Wade’s obsession is Younger Brother’s strange behaviors in Ragtime. Younger Brother was entirely consumed by thoughts of a woman, but in his case Evelyn Nesbit. He, too, followed her around while she remained completely unaware. Younger Brother’s stalker-ish behavior continued to spiral out of control until finally he was caught. “At this moment a hoarse unearthly cry issued from the walls, the closet door flew open and Mother’s Younger Brother fell into the room, his face twisted in a paroxysm of saintly mortification” (Doctorow 63).

In both cases, despite their strange and disapproving actions, both John Wade and Younger Brother get the women they obsess over. However, Younger Brother eventually  looses Evelyn Nesbit to her own flightiness and it appears John Wade looses Kathy, even though how he lost her is yet to be determined. I find the series of events – stalking/spying, winning the girl, losing the girl – demonstrated in both stories to be an interesting intertextual element between Ragtime and In The Lake Of The Woods.