Sex in Ragtime Throughout the novel, there are instances of both violent and more refined sexual references. While an obvious reason for these is the titillating effects of them, there are deeper, more relevant reasons for them. There are three main groups within which the sexual activity takes place: Father and Mother, Younger Brother and Evelyn Nesbit, and Harry Houdini and Harry K. Thaw. Some are more obvious and explicit than others, but they all …showed first 75 words of 1020 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1020 total…up throughout the novel. The reason for this earlier provocative scene is to introduce this problem. Whether violent or more subtle, the sexual references in Ragtime serve a much more important purpose than for pure entertainment value. They help to convey not only the plot, but the theme of class struggle to the reader as well. One has to wonder: do all seemingly titillating scenes in novels and movies actually serve a much higher purpose?