Jessica Shaw
“A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not” (DeLillo 440); this is what Lee Harvey Oswald, the JFK assassin, wanted to be: more than ordinary. Don DeLillo writes a fictional history, in Libra, to show a fictional version of Lee Harvey Oswald as a zero in the system trying to find his way into history. Being a zero in the system, for Oswald, means being forgotten, left out of media and history, unconnected to the mass of people, and feeling lonely. His circumstance led Lee Oswald to feel like an outsider in his own country. Oswald began looking for ways to fit in, groups to join, ideologies to attach to, and ways to break into history and be remembered. I argue, then, that the media is writing Lee Harvey Oswald; I ask if he, before his death, consumes the media-created version of himself. The writing of history is one-sided and Lee Harvey Oswald’s agency to write is removed through his death. The media that once excluded him ultimately writes the history of the JFK assassination.
What do I mean by media? I will focus on media as “the agencies of mass communication” (Merriam-Webster). This is to say that media will be used to represent a technology used to communicate the collective American consciousness of the event. The term “media blitz” develops these ideas as it adds to the term mass: “a lot of information about something on television, radio, in magazines, etc., all at once” (Merriam-Webster). This term applies to the documents, television shows, radio broadcasts and magazines that are seen throughout Libra to depict Lee Harvey Oswald; it can also be used to describe the mass of documents that Nicholas Branch attempts to read through and the research DeLillo drew from to write Libra.
Throughout the novel, the fictional version of Oswald that DeLillo writes, is encrypting himself in documents, pictures, with nicknames/codenames. His encryption is used to deceive; if media does not know the true version of Oswald, he retains his power. Andrew Radford describes Oswald as he “continuously constructs social masks for himself -- the communist sympathizer, the determined defector, the vehement pro-Castro activist, the lone gunman” (234). Lee is encrypting himself as all these labels at once; making it harder to read the true version of Lee Oswald. These titles are often a way to attach to a group of people: communist and activist. Moreover, it is the last label, the “lone gunman,” that will enter the name Lee Harvey Oswald into history. The word “lone” is important because it signals that Oswald must be the only one, alone, himself the lone gunman for his name to be known. It is only through another form of loneliness that Oswald can find his success in history. Through this act he is able to step outside the role of a zero.
Reading was another form of attachment and identification for Lee Oswald. To escape feeling like a zero in the system, Lee identifies with the label “communism”/”communist”. When skipping school, he read many books and in the library, “[h]e Found The Communist Manifesto. It was here in German and in English” (34). Early on, language and reading defined Oswald’s agency. Without the library holding a copy of the English translation of The Communist Manifesto, Oswald may not have been able to read it. It is through this reading that Lee Oswald believes he can begin searching for something larger than himself: “He would find a communist cell and become a member” (DeLillo 35). Becoming a member means belonging to a group, having an identity, and believing in a collective ideology. A collective consciousness and collective agency would mean that Oswald can connect to media. Early on in Oswald’s life, he is beginning to rebel against the system that excludes him, through reading. His past with his mother and his poverty are in juxtaposition to the ideas of Karl Marx; the ideas of communism--that people should be paid what they are worth is not what he sees in his mother. Through this, Oswald develops an obsession with Trotsky and “wanted subjects and ideas of historic scope, ideas that touched his life, his true life, the whirl of time inside him” (DeLillo 33). Oswald wanted to go beyond what school was teaching him and began looking for ways to become someone in history. His readings of The Communist Manifesto gave him this, and it will remain important that it was an English translation.
Though reading is what connects Oswald to ideas, he fails at writing his “Historic Diary” and his writing of Russia because he may be dyslexic or suffer from some form of word blindness. As he read, “[t]he books were struggles. He had to fight to make some elementary sense of what he read.” (DeLillo 34). Oswald connects to The Communist Manifesto because of the connection it brings him to others who struggle, yet, he struggles himself to read that very book. This would have been even harder if the book were only in German and not available in English. Glenn Thomas points out that because Oswald struggles with writing and reading, “Oswald is barred from the written word” (111). Another form of exclusion was found in the very thing that he believed would allow him to connect to others. Here, Oswald views his own writing as important, just as he consumed the writing of Trotsky and Marx; he wanted to write like them. These texts, however, lead to another failure. Reading Marx and Trotsky was a way for him to connect, but he is consumed by their ideologies. His dyslexia or word blindness do not allow him agency in writing.
Oswald’s mark on history is found in another form of writing: naming. Oswald contemplated what can happen to men of notorious acts. While in Russia, he wondered how to step inside history and make his mark:
It occurred to Oswald that everyone called the prisoner by his full name, The Soviet Press, local TV, the BBC, the Voice of America, the interrogators, etc. Once you did something notorious, they tagged you with an extra name that was ordinarily never used. You were officially marked, a chapter in the imagination of the state. Francis Gary Powers. In just these few days the name had taken on resonance, a sense of fateful event. It already sounded historic. (DeLillo 198)
For Lee Harvey Oswald, “they” will represent the media. “They” refers to the ones who will tell his story, even his mother consumed the name Lee Harvey Oswald when retelling his stories. Oswald thinks “they” are “everyone” and notes that it is newspapers, television, and people--a “media blitz” or a lot of shared information all at once. He notes how many people will know Francis Gary Power’s name as he himself consumes the name and the media surrounding it. Oswald saw the prisoner’s consumption by media and wanted the same for himself.
Oswald becomes the media version of Lee Harvey Oswald through the act of shooting JFK and the evidence that points to him as an assassin; media is who gets to report that evidence and tell that story. The media will depict Oswald as a lone gunman; one who was broken by the system and wanted to be noticed. When Nicholas Branch is analyzing research, he contemplates what Oswald's actions mean for American society:
After Oswald, men in America are no longer required to lead lives of quiet desperation. You apply for a credit card, buy a handgun, travel through cities, suburbs and shopping malls, anonymous, anonymous, looking for a chance to take a shot at the next puffy empty famous face, just to let people out there know there is someone out there who reads the papers. (DeLillo 181)
There are all types of people working to make their life full of meaning; Branch points out that Oswald gave them a way to do that. The idea that men are forgotten and seen as zeroes in the system can now be changed because of a gun, a notorious act, or an assassination. There are men and women after Oswald that will try to kill a president.This marks another success for Oswald. William E. Cain describes Oswald’s attempt on General Walker’s life and recounts the “countless easy opportunities for violence that American society offers, and the bonds between brutal actions and fame: media and murderers go hand-in-hand” (279).
To explain further, Oswald is not only writing himself as a way to fit into history but as a reflection of an audience that would accept him into history. While Lee Harvey Oswald was in his cell, awaiting trial, he was also contemplating the writing of his history. Many of the pseudonyms that Oswald went by appealed to a specific audience: Tex shows that he is different than other kids and stands out, Alek attempts to fit in with Russians. Oswald relies on the collective consciousness as he “believes that his acts will be significant and his life made real only when onlookers legitimate them. What he does will matter only when his dramatic performance is witnessed.” (Cain 279). DeLillos narration of Oswald shooting at Walker going unnoticed parallels Oswald shooting JFK; the difference is the resulting death and evidence that proves Oswald did it. It is with the media and society’s acceptance of him as a written figure that he can make his mark on history.
In relation to media, I argue that Lee Harvey Oswald does consume their version of himself. This is most notable in the scene where he is shot: “One of the wildest scenes ever” (DeLillo 439). As Oswald is being transported by ambulance, “he could see himself shot as the camera caught it. Through the pain he watched the TV...Lee watched himself react to the augering heat of the bullet” (DeLillo 440). Just as he had imagined the audience would see him in his historic acts before, he is now watching them unfold. He does not experience his death fully; he steps outside that death and experiences it through other people (Radford 236). Oswald is depicted as focusing on the television instead of the pain of being shot and dying. His connection to media is his survival; even though he is dying, his name will be known by those who are watching. The mass of media will tell what happened that day and here, Oswald experiences it through the audience, technology, and media. I would add that, in this instance, his encryptions are helping them write it too. Lee Harvey Oswald was “a misplaced martyr” he would “let you think he was just a fool, or exactly the reverse as long as he knew the truth and you didn’t” (DeLillo 33). There is evidence in Libra that proves that Oswald knew much more about what was going on than people think. After all, for Oswald to become Lee Harvey Oswald is his only way into history.
Oswald does not know who he is throughout much of Libra. So, he decided that he is Lee Harvey Oswald here through the experience of collective consciousness as he is shot. In this acceptance, Lee Harvey Oswald both consumes the media version of himself and finds his place in history. With this, I mean that his notorious act tagged him as an assassin, but his death seals that story and leaves no interpretation. Oswald will never be on trial and he will not be issued a guilty or not guilty verdict. If Oswald were found innocent, another person may be tagged as the JFK assassin. He is able to not only leave a mark on history but see himself through others viewing him as part of that history. Stepping outside of trying to enter history allows him to recognize himself already in it. Lee Harvey Oswald is the reader of this event, but he is also the writer. Oswald’s identity is fragmented; he becomes the object and subject of his own writing. Oswald becomes the addresser and addressee of his writing and he “occupies the position of Oswald/reader who reads Oswald reading” (Thomas 112-113). Oswald’s self-reflexive need to reconstruct the story of who Lee Harvey Oswald is both taken away at this moment and granted. To simply state that Ruby’s final decision to kill Oswald takes away whatever agency was left to claim his own history is to acknowledge the production of the act that allows Oswald to transgress boundaries and consume the version of himself constructed by media.
Works Cited
DeLillo, Don. Libra. New York, Penguin, 2006. Cain, William E. “Making Meaningful Worlds: Self and History in Libra.” Michigan Quarterly Review, vol. 29, no. 2, 1990, pp. 275–287.
"media." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2018. Web. 13 Dec. 2018.
"Media blitz." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2018. Web. 13 Dec. 2018.
Radford, Andrew. “Confronting the Chaos Theory of History in DeLillo’s Libra.” The Midwest Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 3. 2006. 224-243.
Thomas, Glen. “History, Biography, and Narrative in Don DeLillo’s Libra.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 43, no. 1. 1997. pp. 107-124.
Biography
Jessica Shaw is a second-year English graduate student. She is the President of CSUF’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature Club and Acacia’s Pedagogical Workshop Coordinator. This paper came from a seminar paper written for Dr. Kelman’s “Tales from the Crypt” class.
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