Ragtime and Social Class

Is social identity based on social class?  

I'd have to say yes.  But maybe social identity is not always what people want it to be. Take Evelyn Nesbit, for example.  She seems quite fed up with being in the upper-class and having people identify who she is based on that...so much so that she falls in love with the poor.  She loves helping them.  She loves being with them.  She loves escaping her life to be with them.  Is Doctorow suggesting that one's social class can be a burden, regardless if one is in the upper class or the lower class?  Is either place a place to be unhappy?  Can happiness within a certain social class be achieved?  The following is a passage from Ragtime that helps put this into perspective.

“This was the day Evelyn Nesbit considered kidnapping the little girl and leaving Tateh to his fate.  THe old artist had never inquired of her name and knew nothing about her.  It could be done.  Instead she threw herself into the family’s life with redoubled effort, coming with food, linens and whatever else she could move past the old man’s tormented pride.  She was insane with the desire to become one of them and drew Tateh out in conversation and learned from the girl ow to sew knee pants.  For hours each day, each evening, she lived as a woman in the Jewish slums, and was driven home by the Thaw chauffeur from a prearranged place many blocks away, always in despair.  She was so desperately in love that she could no longer see properly, something had happened to her eyes, and she blinked constantly as if to clear them of the blur.  She saw everything through a film of salt tears, and her voice became husky because her throat was bathed in the irrepressible and continuous crying which her happiness caused her” (Doctorow 49-50).

Evelyn seems to enjoy 'escaping' to be with the poor.  She enjoys not having to bear her own social class 'burden'.  I think Doctorow is depicting Evelyn as a "generic" young woman wanting to break free from the constraints of her social identity and social class; she does this by helping out Tateh and his daughter.