The beginning of Libra contains a very interesting depiction of a relatively young Lee Oswald. The opening chapters of the book try to depict Lee in a somewhat sympathetic light, but he retains characteristics which are off-putting. Many of Lee’s characteristics which are described showcase his apparent lack of ability to understand or empathize with other people’s points of view. One of the aforementioned characteristic is that he thinks that he is always right and that he is better than other people because he seeks an alternative education using large, dusty books that he finds in the back of the library. In addition, he only likes the books because they give him a sense of superiority in terms of allowing him to talk about subject matter than none of his peers care about or understand and being difficult to comprehend. He doesn’t even fully understand the subject matter he uses to justify his greatness and superiority, and this adds a level of complexity to how Lee is viewed. Lee thinks that others will think of him in a “better” light if he does show that he is smarter by reading these old, dusty books, but we know that he doesn’t fully understand what the books are talking about. This creates a conflicting view for the reader. In some ways, we admire the amount of effort he is putting in trying to get people to think he is smart, but on the other hand it would be smarter of him to actually educate himself in things that could advance his life more readily. Lee seems smart at first glance, and if he decided to apply himself to a field of study other than Marxist literature, he may have been extremely successful in the rest of his life. We know that Lee doesn’t really have anyone in his life that could tell him this, which again plays up the sympathy in the reader’s view, and in the way the book currently presents the plot, it would seem like Lee would basically be being used by the agents to get back at Cuba. If we chose to view Lee in a sympathetic light we have to be careful about what action we condone and what actions we oppose. Most of his service in the military seems innocuous until he decides to start giving out American intelligence and shoots himself in the arm to make sure that he doesn’t need to continue to tour with the rest of his troop.
The duality of sympathy and disdain for Lee’s actions seems to be a major component of the story so far and it will be interesting to see if this continues. If we get a depiction of Lee’s thought process in shooting the president, it will be interesting to see if we sympathize with him or if we are completely against his actions. If understanding Lee’s thought process allows us to sympathize with him more than we expect for a seemingly calculating individual, we may be able to understand how other murderers go through and justify themselves as well as how earlier moments in their life affected their actions.
Good observation. Lee either comes across as "lost, without much guidance, and searching for himself" or "intent upon doing it all himself, pompous, and smarter-than-you". I personally think he is a bit of both, a character searching for an outlet for what he is passionate about, and at the same time a sort of condescending and haughty, self-driven to succeed without others.
ReplyDeleteI am also very interested to see how DeLillo presents the actual shooting of the president from Lee's perspective. I find it very interesting to have the sections that are in his head juxtaposed with the other sections, because we get to see what other think of Lee at the same time as we are seeing what Lee thinks of himself.
ReplyDeleteMany mentioned in their blogs the title of the book, Libra, which represents balance, and why the novel had been given the title in the first place. I think your mention of the duality of sympathy and disdain for Lee's actions plays into this and shows that DeLillo is aiming to give a more "balanced" or "fair" viewpoint of Lee's character.
ReplyDeleteI think that DeLillo's goal is to accurately represent what Lee was like rather than try to shift us toward one way of thinking about him or the other. It's been really interesting for me to see how my view of Lee shifts from chapter to chapter based on what age he's at and how he acts.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point here, about Lee's lack of a mentor or father figure in his life. It's not that his interest in Marxism itself is problematic--we aren't reacting against him in a McCarthyist way--but he's engaging Marxism in a vacuum, literally no one else he knows is particularly interested in it, or has an understanding of Marxism beyond what they've gleaned from pro-American/capitalist propaganda. Marxism reflects Lee's profound sense of solitude, and thus his interest takes the form of spy-game fantasies about dark figures dashing across rooftops. We can read Lee's desire to be part of a "cell" in this light: he wants a community, a surrogate family of sorts, a context within which his interests and talents will be valued. But because he doesn't have a teacher/professor/mentor-type figure in his life, who could guide and shape his interest in economics and social justice in more productive directions, he's left to figure it out on his own, susceptible to a range of dicey influences.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see how this susceptibility plays out in the novel.
You make some good points. Lee's actions later in his life make me wonder how much his lack of a father figure had an effect on his character. On top of that, he was constantly moving and never had time to build a strong relationship with anyone other than his mother, who he ends up pushing away later. It was interesting to look at his relationship with Marina, which starts out normal but ends with him beating her and not wanting her to learn English.
ReplyDeleteNow that we have finished the novel, it's interesting in retrospect to see how the reader is supposed to sympathize with Lee throughout the novel. Personally, in the beginning, I felt very little sympathy for Lee as he chose to shut himself off from others by burying himself in the Communist Manifesto, but as he matures, I sympathize with his inability to achieve his goals. Yes, that goal is to be remembered by any means necessary and though killing the president is not the way to go about that, it's difficult to see a character grow up and not achieve their goals. (Again, not condoning the assassination of JFK).
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