As we're starting to get into Libra and piecing together who Lee Harvey Oswald was (at least in DeLillo's eyes), I think it's clear that the novel is going to give us a unique angle on his character. In the Frontline documentary, they really emphasize Lee's position as an outcast, an emotionally distant and isolated misfit. While this has a good deal of factual basis, and supports the "lone gunmen" theory for JFK's assassination, DeLillo's look at Lee's psyche is much more involved. While both reconstructions depict Lee's political ideologies as being integral to the formulation of his identity, only Libra reveals that he is fundamentally not antisocial. He loves to argue, to stand out, but more than that he aspires to be a leader and a symbol, just as Stalin and Trotsky were.
The documentary argues that Oswald's entrance into the Marines at age seventeen served as an escape from his home and a method for him to learn how to shoot a gun, at least suggesting that Lee already had plans to become an assassin, citing his robotic sharpshooting skills. In Libra however, Lee definitely seems out of place as a Marine, and also does not have any nefarious ambitions; even when he attempts treason, it is primarily motivated by his desire for his ideology to be taken seriously. His relatable faults are clearly spelled out for us.
"[He] had conduct and proficiency ratings that climbed for a while, then fell, then climbed and fell again, and his scores on the rifle range were inconsistent" (82).
"He went to the movies and the library. Nobody knew the tough time he had reading simple English sentences...When he was tired it was all he could do to spell five straight words right, to spell a single small word without mixing up the letters. It was a secret he'd never tell" (83).
In his "befriending" of other soldiers in his camp, we see that perhaps Lee was not as emotionally and intellectually isolated as some would have us believe. Somewhat ironically, the novel is exposing a conspiracy theory to the reader, implying that Lee Harvey Oswald was merely a pawn, but it is only in this picture of Lee that he is humanized to such a great extent.
I do think that DeLillo's depiction of Lee Harvey Oswald is unique. It's very different than any history source I've read/seen that tries to characterize JFK's assassin. Even the fact that DeLillo refers to him as Lee makes us sympathize with this young kid who grew up without a father and in poverty. When we read about everything that Lee had going against him, and the ideologies he uses to make sense of his life (i.e. Communism), we are no longer surprised by what Lee becomes, nor are we as blatantly offended.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think it's especially interesting to be reading this from a 21st century perspective, where most of us are not adamantly anti-Communist/Marxist. It's easier for us to accept him as someone who took his ideology to the point of obsession instead of a madman.
DeleteI find it interesting that despite his desire to, as you say, become a leader or symbol, we see him instead so incredibly influenced by others. He is not the independent, focused revolutionary on the fringes of society. Instead, a man he meets for only a brief time is able to influence Lee to shoot Major General Edwin A. Walker. As you point out, DeLillo's humanization of Lee leaves him looking like a pawn, but at the same time Lee's place as a pawn contradicts his desire to be a powerful leader.
ReplyDeleteLike so much else in the Kennedy/Oswald story (in the novel and in nonfiction/history), Oswald's ambiguous personality and social isolation can be seen to fit various theories. You're right that it casts him (rather *conveniently*, the paranoid critic would interject) as a quintessential "lone gunman," but it also shows him to be supremely manipulable. The two are not mutually exclusive: it seems that Lee makes his attempt on Walker's life on his own initiative, plotting and acting alone (in DeLillo he has a fictional accomplice, but Lee is the plotter); but there's also the implication that he is very suggestible, and can be coerced or influenced into taking extreme actions on his own. So it's possible to view him as potentially a "lone gunman" AND part of a larger plot.
ReplyDeleteI guess like Mr. Sutton tells us all, it really depends upon how you tell the story, for example, if you frame the troubled marksman as a misunderstood individual who is this way because of what others have done to him or a person whose path is simply cut out for them regardless of other involvements.
ReplyDeleteYou made a good point about Delillo's explanation of Lee's social isolation. I agree that it seems from the book like Lee has a need for social contact, but that, especially when he's young, this need isn't satisfied by his interactions with real people. So he turns to books, fantasies, etc.
ReplyDelete