Posted: 7/22/18 at 4:29am
Sarah in Ragtime is an extremely noteworthy role with amazing vocals and some very juicy material for an actress to sink her teeth into. However, I think something that often goes over people's heads is that Sarah actually committed a terrible crime: She attempted to murder her baby by burying him alive, a pretty horrifying method of killing, not to mention the killing of one's own baby. Now, she was obviously devastated by Coalhouse's treatment of her and her current situation which was why she broke it off with him, but the musical implies and even states in one instance(The woman who starts to sing Till We Reach That Day is referred to as "Sarah's Friend" ) that she had support in the Harlem community that both she and Coalhouse shared: Why did she not turn to them for advice or support? And although we don't know exactly how she came to be there and when, it is told to us that Sarah worked as a washerwoman for a family close to Mother's residence in New Rochelle. And since the baby was born fairly recently(perhaps even the same day she tried to kill him), how the hell did the people who she was working for not know that she was pregnant?
From this, I'm assuming Sarah was hired fairly recently by this family after she left Coalhouse and most likely hid the pregnancy from them, since in those days(correct me if I'm wrong), I'd assume an upper middle class/upperclass family would have either slammed the door or thrown out onto the street a young black woman who was largely pregnant with no husband, although it is possible Sarah lied and said she had one. Anyway, it seems slightly more likely then not that Sarah left Coalhouse before her pregnancy became noticeable and that she spent a long period of it working for the family in New Rochelle. Either way, she had other options that may or may not have been good ones, but they were options none the less: she could have gone back home and gotten help from her parent's , she could have gone back to Harlem and sought support from her friends, she could have possibly gotten an abortion(although obviously it was illegal at the time and probably highly unsafe, so this would have been a pretty bleak option), confront Coalhouse and tell him that she was pregnant with his child, leave the baby at a church, or even abandon the baby on a street corner, all options that are arguably better then what she decided to do, which was kill the baby by burying it in the ground. Yes, I recognize that she was in a difficult situation, but to me, her act of attempted murder was something that she should have been held responsible for. I think that being convicted of or pleading guilty to an attempted murder or attempted manslaughter charge and serving a 10 to 15 year sentence in prison would have been a just punishment for what she had done. That said, she probably would have been hanged for it in these times and the child would have lived a difficult life being raised by the state, so I can admit that Mother's compassion was justified. My question is do you think that Sarah should have been held responsible for her actions? Or do you think that she made a terrible mistake and made up for that by giving the baby love in the end?
Updated On: 7/22/18 at 04:29 AM
. It would have been so much more interesting to have him be more complicated than he is portrayed in the musical - and truer to his characterization in the novel."
