In EL Doctorow's novel Ragtime, Tateh and Father avidly pursue the American Dream while possessing contrasting beliefs about their individual visions of freedom, wealth/ opportunity and social mobility. While Father's nostalgia, archaic ideas about family structure, and lavish international explorations dictate his quest for mental fulfillment, Tateh remains true to his socialist values ​​by seeking to uplift the working class, criticizing employers for their minimal wages and their cruel working conditions, and reorganize the capitalist system which he believes constitutes a barrier between him and the realization of the American dream. Although he is already a wealthy, honorable, and respected member of New York society, his father strives in his intellectual pursuits to discover meaning and purpose in his life, which only results in his restrictive behavior. and his antipathy towards social freedoms. Rather, Tateh, fueled by the anarchist movement led by Emma Goldman, advances anxiously into the tumultuous 20th century, hungry for equality, monetary fortune, and change. As Upton Sinclair wrote: “You don't have to be content with America as you find it. You can change it. Although both individuals, Father and Tateh, constantly and in different ways seek true happiness in the United States, they share a sensational vision of a country made possible by the American dream. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayThe father's deepest desires for the ultimate realization of the American dream are expressed in an unpleasant, cynical and bitter manner. His mortal self had an aversion to Coalhouse Walker "not because of the man's color but because he was engaged in a courtly act" (Doctorow 182); he discovered that "his mother's body did not arouse his desire, only his discreet appreciation." He admired its form and softness but was no longer inflamed (Doctorow 182). Furthermore, his inferiority to himself (strictly warned against by the philosopher Dr. William James) causes the father to live strictly within his own limits and habitually fail to use his human powers. His stubbornness and nostalgia, combined with an extreme distaste for modern society, inspire Father to develop a vision of the American dream that is lonely, pessimistic, and certainly biased toward 19th-century America. The father's hopes and prospects, unlike those of newly arrived immigrants from Europe such as Tateh and his daughter, are buried in the past and unrecoverable in the future. The premise of the American Dream, as described by playwright David Henry Hwang, is "the ability to imagine the way you want your life to turn out and have a reasonable hope of achieving it." The subjectivity of the American Dream has often been ignored by employers and corporations who have dictated to a group of immigrants that fortune and wealth come from long, hard hours working in a factory; pioneers such as Tateh recognize that the realization of their aspirations can be self-derived and certainly reasonably achieved through the American dream. “Tateh joined the thousands of pickets surrounding the [Lawrence, Massachusetts textile] factory, an enormous brick building that stretched for blocks” (Doctorow 101) and, in doing so, realized that “ [t]he bosses want you to be weak, so you have to be strong” (Doctorow 102). By going on strike legally, Tateh and his fellow strikers obtain a 15% pay increase, a 48-hour work week..