I do think that Oswald's emotional detachment, lack of trust, and strong desire to go against the grain set him up fairly well to be an assassin. The Frontline documentary seemed to conclude that Oswald basically acted alone, presenting some possible ties to organized crime, but not pursuing them in depth. This seems fairly plausible from what we've seen of the novel so far, he enjoys doing things alone and nobody seems to particularly like him very much either.
What I found particularly interesting from the documentary of Oswald's life though, was his strange behavior after killing JFK. He seemed somewhat aimless, carelessly killing a police officer, ultimately winding up in a movie theater and getting himself caught. Afterward, he was recorded shouting about police brutality and completely denying owning the murder weapon at all. This whole showdown struck me as somewhat out of character, since he's clearly a very smart and organized man who would plan for events following the shooting. It almost seems like he wanted to get himself caught, and this seems to strongly indicate that Oswald wasn't just acting alone. I tend to lean toward Oswald having sole responsibility for JFK's death, but the more facts I hear about the case, the fuzzier it seems to become. I definitely look forward to seeing how Oswald's character continues to evolve throughout the novel.
Oswald "wanting to get caught" would accord with the general sense DeLillo explores that he badly wants to be "historical": an unsolved assassination doesn't make the assassin famous. We can never decisively get into the real L.H. Oswald's head in those hours after the assassination, of course, but it doesn't appear that he had any kind of coherent escape plan in mind.
ReplyDeletePay attention, when we get there, to how DeLillo accounts for these erratic movements after the shooting--it fits into the story he spins, but I'll say no more at this point.
I think it’s difficult to recognize Lee as a mature adult when so far we see him as this boy with big ideas and a crooked view of the world. He has all these completely different concepts about life and success and what matters to him, and it makes him a really interesting character that is flawed at the very core and as such, is hard to recognize for who he is. His attention-grabbing wishes aren’t that crazy, but he has no qualms with going very far to get what he wants, which is why he has this smirk because he knows himself and nobody else does.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty much in agreement with you, Andy. The only part that is different for me is that I've always thought that there is a bigger story to the JFK assassinations. I think its interesting that Oswald's personality and character makes it so that it is very easy for him to be brainwashed and recuited just like how people are being recruited for various terrorist organizations. What always gets me is that there's so much evidence, but there is also seems to be so much missing information. I think this points to three possibilities. One, Oswald was the only assailant. Two, it was an inside job with a bunch of cover-ups. Three, it was an outside job, but admittance of letting the president die would be an embarrassment. Whatever the case, this is probably one of the biggest mysteries of the twentieth century.
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