• ISSN: 2382-6282 (Print); 2972-3108 (Online)
    • Abbreviated Title: Int. J. Lang. Lit. Linguist.
    • Frequency: Bimonthly
    • DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL
    • APC: 500 USD
    • Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Jason Miin-Hwa Lim
    • Managing Editor:  Shira.W.Lu
    • Indexed by:   CNKI, Google Scholar, Crossref,
    • E-mail: ijlll_Editor@126.com
HOME > Archives > 2025 > Volume 11 Number 5 (2025) >
IJLLL 2025 Vol.11(5): 213-216
DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL.2025.11.5.603

Expressive Montage in Ragtime: Characterization of the Confused Mainstream Group

Shijia Du* and Yu Sun
Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China
Email: 2582629787@qq.com (S.J.D.)
*Corresponding author

Manuscript received May 4, 2025; accepted June 29, 2025; published September 18, 2025.

Abstract—Ragtime written by E.L. Doctorow was a classic of postmodern novels, in which the author employed montage technique in film production to shape typical characters like the three white male figures. Doctorow mainly adopted psychological montage, lyrical montage and metaphorical montage methods to show the mental crisis of the middle-class white men under the tremendous social change including immigrants influx and labor capital conflict, who were usually assumed the most privileged group in the United States. This paper used Eisenstein’s montage theory to analyze the promotion of character portrayal through the use of montage techniques and the confusion, struggle or lost state of the mainstream group in the United States in the early 20th century, which worth people’s reflection as the problems still exists in the current American society.

Keywords—characterization, montage, Ragtime

Cite: Shijia Du and Yu Sun, "Expressive Montage in Ragtime: Characterization of the Confused Mainstream Group," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 213-216, 2025.

Copyright © 2025 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).

 

PREVIOUS PAPER
Exploration on the Mechanism, Impact, and Practical Strategies of High School Education and Cultural Integration
NEXT PAPER
The Discourse Construction of Community for the Chinese Nation in the Translation of The Analects
Copyright © 2015-2025. International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics. Unless otherwise stated.
E-mail: ijlll_Editor@126.com