Lee Harvey Oswalds Search for Identity
In DeLillo’s novel Libra, we as readers are taken on a captivating journey into the events surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. At its core, I believe Libra is a novel about Lee Harvey Oswald's search for identity amid the chaos of history.
From the beginning of the novel, Oswald is portrayed as a boy who feels alienated and displaced. He struggles to find his place in the world both personally and politically. For example, in the Soviet Union, he feels unrecognized as someone who can contribute a valuable perspective on the world's politics. Additionally, when Oswald is moving from place to place, he constantly grapples with feeling unappreciated and unrecognized as an important political figure. These frequent moves also contribute to a sense of rootlessness, which fuels his desire to find an identity and define himself in relation to the world around him. Similarly, in Oswald’s personal life, he is constantly in a state of alienation. His relationship with Marina is full of turmoil and contempt. He regards his mother with a sense of annoyance and disdain, and with FBI and CIA agents like David Ferrie, they only interact with Oswald to obtain their own goals, keeping him somewhat at a distance. This leaves Oswald without any close, genuine connections with anybody.
Additionally, Oswald's search for identity is closely related to his political ideology. He is drawn to radical and revolutionary ideas as he feels forgotten and screwed over by the capitalist system he grew up with. Problematically, despite Oswald's interest in revolutionary ideology, he struggles to find a specific movement that aligns with his beliefs, resulting in constant contradictions within himself. For example, Oswald's interest in joining the U.S. Army while also exploring Marxism are two passions in direct opposition to each other. Through pursuing these endeavors, Oswald finds himself isolated in the Marines due to his open agreement with socialist ideology and in the Soviet Union, where he is regarded with skepticism rather than embraced with open arms.
Overall, Oswald's desire for significance and identity drives his actions throughout the novel. He yearns to make a mark on the world and be recognized as valuable and important to society. Oswald is desperate to be remembered for something significant. His obsession for historical significance eventually leads him to consider extreme measures like the attempt on Walker and, as we know, eventually the assassination of President Kennedy. In many ways, Oswald's search for identity is deeply intertwined with his desire for notoriety and recognition.
I think the book aims to depict Oswald as a boy, not really ever fully grown, who is easily influenced. We see him aiming to impress communist supporters and stand out through actions like carrying around Das Kapital. In this way Lee has, in a sense, for a long time invited bullying and the role of outsider in society, which makes it unsurprising that he is willing to jump on an opportunity to be a part of something bigger when he is approached by Ferrie and the other conspirators of the Kennedy assassination plot, seeing as it is a means to further a pro-communist movement and finally justify the persona he has been embodying his whole life.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate this post, it pointed out something pretty interesting to me. I feel like this has been a common thread throughout all of these books we've read this year, the identity crisis. I had not really noticed this theme in this book before, but now that you have pointed it out it seems really noticeable. It certainly was a driving force behind a lot of the erratic behavior that Oswald partook in throughout the plot. It seems as if he was merely searching for somewhere that he felt like he belonged.
ReplyDeleteLee is really depicted as a complex character full of ton of contradictions in this novel. He's such a confusing character (especially with the whole thing with the false defector program) and his actions seem baseless and confusing from an outsider's perspective. DeLillo really attempts to try and contextualize his actions and make them make sense given his experiences and ideology. Although there are still a boatload of things that confuse me about him, I really like your point about he is driven by his desire for significance and identity. Nice post Nyla!
ReplyDeleteHi Nyla, nice post. You do a great job of breaking down Lee's character and hypocrisies. Though he thinks that he is constantly in control of his own destiny and is one step ahead of everyone else, these illusions lead him into situations where he is taken advantage of and, through his stubborn belief, fails to realize it until it is too late. Like Kelby mentioned, I think it is important to remember that Lee is only 24 when he shoots JFK, and even younger when he defects to Russia, joins the marines, etc.
ReplyDeleteContemplating Oswald's seemingly delusional desire to be "part of history" on the scale of a Leon Trotsky always leads us (sometimes grudgingly) to admit that, in a certain way, he WAS right. The idea that someday people would study his absurd "Historical Diary" as an actual historical source that is fascinating NOT for what it reveals about the Soviet Union but what it reveals about the mentality and psychology of the guy who wrote it sounds ridiculous and delusional--until we realize that, through reading the italicized excerpts in this novel, we are doing EXACTLY what Lee imagined.
ReplyDeleteSo would he be PLEASED at the role he's ended up playing in history? Everyone knows his name. And, like it or not, he HAS remained an elusive, mysterious, and fascinating historical subject--and we know how much he enjoyed keeping people guessing in his lifetime. He is not known as a particularly important thinker on Marxist economics, and he didn't make history as a famous American defector to the USSR or Cuba. But when we consider what kind of motives might have driven him to take these shots at the President's motorcade, it's hard not to conclude that the temptation of a surefire ticket to historical notoriety may have played some role.
The most believable part of Lee's all-too-brief post-assassination experience (the two days in which he IS famous), as DeLillo renders it, is his realization that he may have just found his life's work: he imagines himself in his prison cell, being visited by curious historians and scholars, telling his story (in all its variations!) for the rest of his life. I almost feel bad for him that he never got this opportunity!