Texas Face

The climactic chapter of Libra in which Kennedy is assassinated is chockfull of imagery. This is one of the reasons I love this chapter. In only a couple dozen of pages, DeLillo has inserted so much meaning. One of my favorite images that DeLillo uses in the chapter is the “Texas face.”

As Lee prepares to shoot the president, he takes a moment to take in the sights of the motorcade. At this point, he is still cocky and hasn’t thought things through, and is thus overly optimistic. As he watches the president’s car pass, he sees the governor:

He spotted Governor John Connally in one of the jump seats, a Stetson in his lap. He liked Connally’s face, a rugged Texas face. This was the kind of man who would take a liking to Lee if he ever got to know him. (DeLillo 395)

Later in the chapter, as Lee is starting to realize that he has been put on and is actually in danger after having fired the shots, he imagines another Texas face:

He was already talking to someone about this. He had a picture, he saw himself telling the whole story to someone, a man with a rugged Texas face, but friendly, but understanding. Pointing out the contradictions. Telling how he was tricked into the plot. What is it called, a patsy? He saw a picture of an office with a tasseled flag, dignitaries in photos on the wall. (DeLillo 401)

In this passage, with Lee arguably starting to see the situation with less of his narcissism and optimism, you can see his worry. The image of the “Texas face” strikes me because it so accurately captures how Lee thinks and acts throughout the book. He starts out thinking nothing can go wrong, and then he is proven wrong. A lot of the Lee’s character can be summed up in these two short passages.

Interestingly, and as a bit of a side note, DeLillo makes it very obvious that these passages are to be thought about in conjunction. In addition to the image of the “Texas face,” DeLillo also adds images after both of these passages involving cartons and books. Immediately after the first mention in this chapter of the “Texas face,” DeLillo adds the sentence, “Cartons stamped Books” (395). After the second passage, he writes, “Books stacked ten cartons high” (DeLillo 401). 

Same Old Lee

It finally happened. Lee shot Kennedy. The whole book has built up to this. There are so many things I want to say about this chapter, but to save you from having to sift through all of my jumbled thoughts, I decided to write about Lee in this chapter.

I know that I have gone on and on about Lee, but the duality of his character fascinates me. Another key component of the characterization of Lee that I like is the fact that he doesn’t change. Even though the events in the novel take place over years and he is thrown into increasingly complex and escalating situations, Lee still remains the slightly lovable dumbass that we have seen throughout the book. As he began to take position to shoot Kennedy, he kept going through scenarios in his head about how big he would be. Interestingly, it isn’t until a while after he fires his three shots that he feels any nervousness. It isn’t until after months of planning that Lee even begins to consider what’ll actually happen after the murder. It isn’t until he’s already done it that he really considers the consequences:

Lee got out and walked north on Beckley, hearing a jangling in the air, feeling the first nervousness. What do I look like? To anybody seeing me, where do I look like I’m coming from? He checked the numbers on the license plates of parked cars. Do I look like someone leaving the scene? His stomach was empty and he had that feeling in the mouth where there’s a rusty taste, something oozing from the gums. (DeLillo 406)

He pretty much wanders the streets aimlessly for a bit, not really taking the post-assassination plan seriously:

He went down Beckley figuring there was no choice but to go to the movie house where they were supposed to pick him up. He knew he couldn’t trust them but there was nowhere else to go. He had fourteen dollars and bus transfer. They had him cold. He could be walking right into it. The lurking thought, the idea of others making the choice now. He wanted to believe it was out of his hands. (DeLillo 407)

And this all ends with him shooting a cop. He shoots a police officer in broad daylight after thinking he was cleverly avoiding arrest. He tried to talk his way out of being searched and ended up making himself seem more dangerous. This is classic Lee at his finest.

           

            

Libra

A while ago we were given a prompt in class. We were supposed to write about the significance of Lee being a Libra. I don’t want to rehash my journal entry on the subject, but I found this prompt very interesting. Lee being a Libra is not just a quick way to relate him to the title, it holds very relevant meanings. Most importantly, when I think of Libra, one of the things I think of is a division. I associate the scales with dichotomies, and I see a huge dichotomy in Lee. On one hand there is the dumbass I previously talked about, and then there is the ambitious planner that he thinks he is. Even though his plans aren’t complete or well thought out, he does try to make them, and one cannot argue that he isn’t ambitious; he knows he’s gonna be in the history books. There is a huge difference between how Lee sees himself and how others see him. He sees shooting himself as some big thing, and the guy who finds him sees him as an idiot. He sees himself as a revolutionary in Russia, and they see him as a pathetic child. In the assassination plot, he sees himself as the key historical figure as always, taking that ridiculous picture with his gun, while the others involved in the plot see him as an expendable pawn and a scapegoat. 

Dumb Lee

In the early chapters of Libra, I couldn’t help but to think of Lee as an idiot. I still have this problem, but now I understand him a little better. Anyways, in the early chapters of the novel, I was shocked by his inflated sense of self and his inability to think things through. He’d think he’d have a well thought out plan, and then end up acting with almost no contemplation. For example, he shot himself. He didn’t accomplish anything. He was called a fool, that’s pretty much it. He acts with no thought. He studies books about communism in his youth, but he seems not to absorb any of the information in them but rather reads them because he thinks it makes him fit an archetype. He reads these books because it makes him look like he’s special, like he’s a revolutionary. He travels to communist Russia, seemingly having thought it out, but steps off of the plane to find out he’s not wanted. He tries to exchange American secrets for favor, but it is said that almost nothing he says is of value. If the man who interrogated him didn’t pity him, he would’ve gotten nothing. If not for the man’s pity, Lee would’ve been royally screwed. He could’ve ended up dead in a foreign country. The man is an idiot. And this stupidity and narcissism only grows with time. In Libra, Lee Harvey Oswald comes off as nothing more than a dumb, easily manipulated child.