American and British Studies Annual (Dec 2019)
The Role of African American Music in E. L. Doctorow’s The March
Abstract
This paper explores the role of African American music in E. L. Doctorow’s historical novel The March (2005), with a focus on selected scenes in which this type of music occurs. It examines the emotions elicited in the protagonists as well as the atmosphere created or underlined by this music. Furthermore, it takes into account which musical instruments are employed and considers their significance in the book with regard to their symbolic meaning. It also investigates the extent to which African American music contributes to the development of the story. The name of the book refers to Sherman’s March to the Sea, which took place towards the end of the American Civil War and when numerous former slaves were freed by Sherman’s troops. The fate of the freed slaves, however, was rather complex, which is reflected in the characteristics of the music that they perform in certain scenes. The relevance of African American Music to Doctorow’s work is highlighted by the fact that the author himself became world-famous chiefly for his novel Ragtime (1975), whose main protagonist Coalhouse Walker is a pianist of African American origin. The character’s fictional father Coalhouse Walker senior appears as an African American banjo player in The March.
