Doctorow portrays Coalhouse differently than most of the other characters in the book. This could be because Coalhouse is unlike any other character. He is not a famous historical figure like Morgan or Ford; nor is he completely made up like Father and Mother. Coalhouse is based on a character from an old fictional story.
Doctorow doesn't go into Coalhouse’s head like he does with Morgan and other characters who are real people. He chose to give small bits of information about Coalhouse by showing what was know about him at that time. Doctorow said “Here, given subsequent events, it is important to mention what little is known about Coalhouse walker Jr.” He could have easily made up facts about Coalhouse or dive into his inner psyche as he did with Morgan, but with the limited information the audience receives, Coalhouse feels like a much more real character. It made me feel like I was learning about Coalhouse through a history book or a newspaper of that time.
I feel more sympathetic towards Coalhouse just knowing these few facts. If I did know exactly what was going on in his head, I might be a little put off; but I don’t think this was Doctorow's main intention. Coalhouse is the most fictitious character, in the sense that he is a made-up charactered based on another made-up character, and yet he is portrayed through a historical lens; unlike the real historical characters. This is a more subtle example of Doctorow’s irony. He could be using this to make a comment on the relationship between history and fiction. Perhaps the treatment of Coalhouse as a historical character is suggesting that history is subjective; it doesn't really matter that he is made up, the audience feels like he is real and is just as significant as Morgan or Ford.
Yes--there's a peculiar effect going on here, where Doctorow's narrator "pretending" to treat Coalhouse as a figment of the historical record, by noting what can't be determined about his past, paradoxically makes him seem *more real* to the reader. Doctorow "playing" historian here is part of the fiction--as readers, we sort of see the narrator as a "character" as well, the person who has "assembled" this narrative from the ingredients history has provided. He doesn't just *present* Coalhouse as a character; he gives us a glimpse of the work he has to do in order to "reconstruct" him. It's a weird and cool effect, indeed.
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