Sympathy for Lee

Throughout DeLillo's Libra, Lee has been portrayed in such a manner that the reader could see him as having been used. The extent by which Lee is being used or is the user is not clear, but towards the end when Ferrie comes to give Lee that final push on the scales, I cannot help but feel sympathy for him. In this scene, Lee does not seem very enthusiastic about the prospect of shooting Kennedy. In fact, it looks like he does not want to do the dirty deed that he is faced with here.

I felt sympathy for Lee when he was being persuaded into killing JFK, but for me one of the most tender and sympathy endorsing moments of the novel occurs after Lee has committed the crime. Lee is in Jail and Marina comes to visit him. When she is thinking back about "the boy she'd married," it is practically heart wrenching. I was one who found myself wishing that Lee would not go to shoot Kennedy, wishing that DeLillo could change the course of history. But as Vonnegut shows in Slaughterhouse Five, the moment is structured this way. DeLillo of course cannot rewrite history. As with Slaughterhouse Five, from the beginning of the novel, we know the climax of the novel and we know how it will end. We know that Lee is going to shoot Kennedy from the window of the Book Depository and is then in turn going to be killed by Jack Ruby. We know that all of this is going to happen, but that in turn made it more painful for me to watch the history play out.

So when Marina comes to the jail and thinks about Lee's progression from the "mild face of the boy she'd married" to "this man with a beak nose and dark eyes, one brow swollen, clothes too big for him. This specter with grey skin. She looked at the lumpy Adam's apple, the prominent nose. His cheeks were sunk under the bones, leaving this nose, tis bird beak. He had to be guilty she thought, to look so bad." This scene is incredibly sad because as the reader, along with Marina, we have watched Lee grow up. We have seen this boy spiral down the wrong path caught up in the momentum of history. And as Marina says, he was a boy that she married. Forced into becoming this man by his circumstances.

"He told her now to buy shoes for June. Don't worry, he said. And kiss the babies for me. The guards got him out of the chair and he walked backwards to the door, watching her until he was gone" (425). The humanity in these few lines is tragic. Especially because we know that Lee holding Marina's gaze until he is taken away is the last time he will see her. DeLillo does an excellent job of playing upon the emotions of the reader. I want so badly for things to turn out well for Lee. In this way, DeLillo has succeeded in bringing light to one other side of the JFK assassination story. In this moment, I see Lee as not being at fault for Kennedy's death. I see him as having been caught up in the movement, a boy whose scales were tipped too soon.

With any great or terrible moment in history, there are many factors leading up to the event. There is rarely ever just a single cause. Lee Harvey Oswald may be pinned as the cause of Kennedy's death, but DeLillo has shown us that no matter what side we take, there was much more at play than simply a lone gunman at the window.

Coincidence?

There is so much going on in the passage where Ferrie comes and talks to Lee about how the time for action in shooting Kennedy has come (382-385). "It was all about him. Everything that happened was him." From an early age, we are taught not to view ourself as the center of the universe, and that it isn't all about us. However, in these last several chapters, it really does seem like it is all about Lee.

Lee points out several coincidental events that point at what he is about to do. He sees the men with the rifles in the hotel lobby, he turns on the tv late at night and watches a movie that he sees as mirroring what he his about to do. I'm sure there are several other coincidental occurrences that are escaping me at the moment, but perhaps the biggest coincidence, the one that sticks out the most, is that Kennedy happens to be coming to Dallas texas and will be driving down the street by the building where Lee works. This is the final straw because the plotters have essentially been waiting for this to happen, but it also is not in their control to plan the route that Kennedy would take. There is an expression "let the chips fall where they may." In this final coincidence, it is as if the chips are falling and landing perfectly.

Ferrie's beliefs might say that this is not coincidence but rather what is predestined to happen. That Lee was meant to shoot Kennedy. Regardless of how the reader views the idea of predestination, DeLillo almost sets it up so that Lee "coincidentally" fits the mold that both the plotters and he himself have created perfectly. Also, in working with all of these greater coincidences in history (for example all of the convenient deaths after Kennedy was shot), DeLillo pushes the reader to believe that there had to have been more to the story than simply a lone gunman.

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald. One of the most notorious names in history to date. In all honesty, before reading Libra I knew very little about the conspiracy theories behind Kennedy's assassination. Sure, I knew that they existed, but I knew next to nothing of the content. In fact, I did not know much about the story at all. However, what my naive self did know was the name of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot Kennedy.

Something that I have found particularly interesting in reading this novel is the reoccurring theme of Lee's name being changed, confused, mixed up, or portrayed as unimportant. Leon, Trotsky, O. H. Lee, Ozzie, and others that are escaping me at the moment are all versions of Lee Harvey Oswalds name. Although it may seem inconsequential, I feel like DeLillo is deliberately using these variations of Lee's name. What the vast uninformed public majority do know about this man is his name. So in lining this story with so many different names for Lee Harvey Oswald, DeLillo emphasizes how little we know about Lee as a person.

Throughout the novel, I have gotten the sense that to Lee, it is not so important that people know Lee's name but rather know who he his and know about him. It also seems like he has an inflated sense of self importance in the eyes of his higher powers. He assumes that everyone in the FBI and CIA and such are watching him and know all about him. In fact, when he writes a threatening note to the FBI telling them to stop bothering his wife, he doesn't even sign the note (375). Yet they will know that the note is from Lee, even without his name on the note.

A mere page turn later, the reader learns about the "Oswald doubles." In this case, the name becomes more important because these lookalikes are identified as Oswald only in name. Because a picture of a double is labelled "Oswald" it suddenly has credibility regardless of who the actual person in the photo is. This is ironic because here we see that Lee's name is becoming more important to the plotters as he himself becomes less important.

Fiction as History

Although initially I felt like DeLillo's Libra was too long and tedious of a read to be placed at the end of the course, as the story plays out I can see the necessity of placing Libra at the end of the syllabus. Not only is Lee Harvey Oswald one of the most notorious names in history, but also Kennedy's assassination is recent enough that as a modern day reader I can easily visualize this historical event playing out in my mind.

With some of the other novels that we have read in this course there were clear aspects of "fiction" and other more clear aspects of "history" (in particular Slaughterhouse Five and Kindred). Also, in most of the other novels if there has been a "main character," he/she has not been a historical figure to have actually existed or to have played as significant of a role in large-scale history. In each historical fiction novel there is the element of mystery because we can never know for sure what all did and did not happen if it was not recorded. However, having Lee and his story be the main focus of Libra has been captivating because this story fits so well into the gaps of the historical account.

In class early today (Friday) we watched the footage of Kennedy's assassination. While this was on loop, I couldn't help but view the video in the context of DeLillo's version of the event. The blend of history and fiction is so smooth in Libra that because this real footage exists, I am more inclined to entertain the possibility that DeLillo's account holds as much if not more truth than the official record. As we have also mentioned in class, the numerous coincidences in the actual historical event that are played upon in the novel makes one question if all of these ironic twists of fate are in fact somehow directly related.

In terms of work load, I would have preferred to read Libra earlier in the semester, but I do agree that the placement of this book at the end nicely wraps up the course. This novel is so much the perfect example of historical fiction because it plays upon the idea that much of the actual recorded history as we know it could be fiction. DeLillo works with the tantalizing thought that no matter how much of the Kennedy assassination case is studied, historians can never know for sure what happened if there is no record. No one will ever know for sure the conspiracy that may have gone on in secret behind the scenes.

The Map Quest

A very crucial scene in Octavia Butler’s Kindred is when Dana has been drawn back into Rufus’s time and has a map of Maryland with her. Rufus wants Dana to burn the map and says that she would be in great trouble if his father saw her with the map. When she doesn’t want to burn it, he blackmails her by saying that he won’t mail the letter to Kevin until she burns the map. The paragraphs following are particularly key.

I did not fully see how important the scene is and how much this couple of paragraphs foreshadows until after I had finished the book.

“He waited, watching me. I wanted to ask him what he would do with my letter if I didn’t burn the map. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to bear an answer that might send me out to face another patrol or earn another whipping. I wanted to do things the easy way if I could.”

After dropping the map into the fire, Dana says

“’I can manage without it you know,’ I said quietly. ‘No need for you to,’ said Rufus. ‘You’ll be all right here. You’re home.’” (143).

When I first read this scene, Rufus and Dana were kind of scaring me because I felt like their relationship could turn ugly with this new element of blackmailing each other. Now after finishing the book, other elements pop out at me. Dana says that she wants to do things the easy way. Which makes sense of course since she wants to avoid a whipping. However, it also shows a major sign of Dana breaking with the system. Later in Kindred, Alice asks Dana if she would go to Rufus and she says no. I think that Dana really does mean what she says and is acting honestly in the moment, but based on what we have seen, it makes us wonder if push came to the shove, would Dana go to him to avoid all of the physical pain.

Thus near the end when Dana is in such a situation, she thinks about how easy it would be to let Rufus rape her and although this is very disturbing, it makes more sense that she would have those thoughts.

The ambiguous first line of the prologue was also brought up during class, “I lost an arm on my last trip home” (9). In the beginning, we assume that “home” is the present day.  However, in light of Rufus’s later comment that she is home on the plantation with him, the ambiguity of the line shines forth. I think that this first line is quite intentionally ambiguous and so much so that the reader isn’t supposed to know which “home” it is referring to. It seems as though the point is that at this point, Dana has spent so much time and become so assimilated and attached in the past that even she does not know what to consider “home” anymore.

Oh Rufe.

Throughout the novel, I had been holding out for Rufus despite his later atrocities. I couldn’t help but have hope that he would turn out different from his father and not become the typical slaveholder. Looking at this all realistically, Rufus does treat his slaves much better than most of the slaveholders of the time. And I realize the necessity of taking into account that he is a product of his time, but since he has been exposed to these radical future ideals, it’s almost like a slap in the face. If Rufus, who has this  greater exposure, cannot beat the system of slavery in the south, who can?

The final scene between Rufus and Dana does not seem like the "final showdown" between the good and evil characters. This scene is much too sick and twisted to be at all glorified in my mind. I am having an extremely difficult time wrapping my head around this scene because so much is going on, both explicitly and subtly.

There are so many levels of complexity working together in this last scene. Rufus is going to rape Dana, his descendant. Dana is thinking about how easy it would be to let Rufus rape here. He doesn't want to hurt her, but he and she both know that he can and will if she resists. As it is, Dana and Rufus have had a very complicated relationship throughout his entire life. For Dana, she has been with Rufus almost continuously for the past several months, only going back to her own time for a few days. However,  Rufus has had Dana with him in relatively short chunks of time over the past twenty some years of his life.

Dana seems to think that they both need each other equally, she even says at one point that Kevin "doesn't understand how much they need each other" (or something to that effect). While it may be true that they both need each other, their roles in each others lives are extremely complex and differ drastically for each character. Both literally need the other to survive, Rufus needs Dana to keep saving his life and Dana needs Rufus to start her family blood line. However, Dana starts out as more of a motherly figure for Rufus and then as their age gap closes he begins to view her in more of a romantic way as the emotional half to his physical relationship with Alice. Thus making their relationship even more twisted.

It's difficult for me to talk about the relationship between Dana and Rufus in light of the final scene without ending up confused and feeling slightly nauseous. There is so much to discuss but in the end it all boils down to context. Rufus has spend his entire life raised in this awful oppressive system, and though what he does makes me sick, I can't help but feel sorry for him. Octavia Butler has succeeded in making me even more disgusted in what the antebellum south does to people and how easily humanity is broken.

Forgiving

The recurrent theme in Octavia Butler’s Kindred of Dana forgiving Rufus came up several times during class discussions. This got me thinking more about the relationship between Dana and Rufus. It is easier to think that I would not have forgiven Rufus so easily for his repeat offenses. However, after further consideration, it makes more sense to me that Dana would forgive him so readily.

This change in my viewpoint came when I considered my own first experience in a setting so different from my own but with obvious culture ties. The summer after my freshman year of high school, I went on an Appalachian Service Project trip with a church that a family friend belongs to. We went to Inez, Kentucky to help repair the house of a family living in severe poverty. To give a bit of context, this town is almost entirely white. I was told that there was only one black family in the entire county. I spent a lot of time playing with the children of the family whose house I was working on. For me this was interesting because I have a little sister who was the same age as one of the children. These little six and seven year old girls went around dropping F-bombs and swearing like mad at everyone and everything because they didn’t know any better. At home, I would have been appalled and never would have tolerated my sister treating me in that way, but because of the context that I was in, I found myself instead forgiving these children and feeling sad for them as I tried to set them a good example.

Obviously my experience in KY was nothing like Dana’s experience on the Weylin Plantation, but I can say that because of this I was able to understand Dana’s readiness to forgive perhaps not only because of her familial and emotional ties, but also because the context is so different from what she is used to.