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.

Simple Moments

As we touched on in class, throughout Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five the lack of explicitly explained emotions allows for the reader to experience their own emotions during the course of the novel. I found this book to be incredibly touching. I suppose that I tend to be easily moved by novels, but this one was powerful in a different way that I attribute to the moments that Vonnegut chooses to include in telling Billy Pilgrim's stories.

Vonnegut's portrayal of World War II and the outlook on human nature tended to leave me with a bleak feeling about the terrors of this world. So it was the moments of pure and simple humanity in Slaughterhouse-Five that illicited the strongest emotional reactions in me. Hopefully this example is not getting old, but the scene in the prenatal malt syrup factory where Billy sneaks Derby a spoonful of syrup "and then Derby burst into tears" is quite powerful (205).

Another similarly emotional moment is when Billy and a few other Americans are in the back of a horse drawn wagon and are going to look through Dresden's remains to see if anything is there worth salvaging. Billy lies in the back of the wagon asleep in the sun, enjoying what he might have chosen to be "his happiest moment" (249). A short time later, a couple of German doctors notice the poor condition of the horses pulling the wagon and scold Billy for their treatment. "When Billy saw the condition of his means of transportation, he burst into tears. He hadn't cried about anything else in the war." Because there are very few moments in the novel where a character cries, the moments when there are tears shed have a much stronger impact on the reader. In both of these cases, it is as if the men are unable to fully process or let themselves be vulnerable to their own emotional reactions to the horrors of the war that they have witnessed. So, their layers of masked and hidden feelings only show through when a small act of humanity occurs.

4 Dimensions

"That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book" (160). By occasionally inserting himself into the novel, Vonnegut adds a fourth dimension to Slaughterhouse Five. It is as if Vonnegut wants the reader to see the novel from a bit of a Tralfamadorian perspective, since they see in four dimensions all the time.

It is difficult for the Tralfamadorians to explain to humans how they see the world, because humans only see the world in three dimensions. I feel like Vonnegut is showing us how difficult it is to write a "war novel" that the reader will understand because there are "four dimensions" to war, one of which could be the experience of actually being there. It is impossible to fully explain this "fourth dimension" of the war to someone who was not experiencing it for themselves. So Slaughterhouse-Five is Vonnegut's "failed" attempt to portray a dimension or war that only exists for those who were part of the structured moments in the war.

Another example of how Vonnegut uses this fourth dimension would be the science fiction aspect and his similarities as an author to his main character Billy Pilgrim. "So they were trying to reinvent themselves and their universe. Science Fiction was a big help" (128). Billy Pilgrim is using science fiction as an escape from his reality. Vonnegut does the same. Vonnegut reinvents his war experience by means of science fiction. In fact, science fiction could be seen as another fourth dimension in the novel.

The reader cannot hope to fully grasp Vonnegut's fourth dimension of war, which is his experience of being there. Thus Vonnegut uses science fiction and the elements of time travel and Tralfamadorians as a fourth dimension to this "war story" so that the reader can at least begin to understand the experience of war (and in particular the bombing of Dresden) from a perspective that does not only see the typical, or "three dimensional," depiction.

Vonnegut and Zusak in cohorts?

As I began getting into Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, I was strongly reminded of Markus Zusak's novel The Book Thief. The Book Thief is set in Germany during WWII and gives the story of several civilians during the war. The narrator is Death. This is a strange way to narrate, but adds an element of "science fiction" that is similar to using Tralfamadore in a war novel. Both of these books seem to use their respective unrealistic aspects in order to make less honorable and more gruesome parts of the war have a stronger impact in the readers mind.

Right away, I noticed several similarities between the two novels and wondered if perhaps the two others might have fed off of each others ideas at all. After doing a little research, I did not find any conclusive evidence but did find a quote from Time Magazine agreeing with the similarities I am seeing "Zusak doesn’t sugarcoat anything, but he makes his ostensibly gloomy subject bearable the same way Kurt Vonnegut did in Slaughterhouse-Five: with grim, darkly consoling humor.” 


 In Slaughterhouse-Five, the Tralfamadorians discuss the structure of a moment like being stuck in amber. No one can change what happens because that is just how it is structured and always has and always will be. The Book Thief also gives a great importance to moments, but the narrator of Death describes them in terms of colors. Both novels also jump around quite a bit. Vonnegut has Billy Pilgrim jumping through time much more than Zusak uses this element, but Death also jumps around in time in his narrations.

The most striking similarity I found in Vonnegut and Zusak's style of telling a "war story" was the approach of flat out telling what is going to happen to a character before it happens, in particular telling how and when a character is going to die. In both novels, this worked to break the hope of the reader who is holding onto the possibility that said characters will make it through. There is always a part of me that wants the happy, or at least satisfying, ending for a character so knowing about their death in advance makes it sadder for me when it actually happens. Knowing and being reminded of Derby's death so often makes it difficult and all the more heart wrenching to read passages where Derby is writing to his wife not to worry because he "will be home soon."

Although Vonnegut and Zusak may not have been in cohorts while writing their books, both approach the "war novel" from a very different angle. Neither glorifies the war but rather present it in a way that makes WWII look pathetic and something to be ashamed of on both sides.