Lee's Duality

Libra follows the three-name rule: assassinate a president, and people begin calling you by all three of your names. Lee’s full name, “Lee Harvey Oswald,” isn’t used until the end of the novel, after Lee is arrested for assassination of President Kennedy. 


This first-middle-last name dynamic, in one way, seems to be an attempt to dehumanize the person in question. To be fair, it’s probably really difficult to see eye-to-eye with a murderer, and the fact that he (supposedly?) assassinated the president especially makes the three-name status fitting. He’s alienated -- in fact, Lee comments on this himself in the book:


“Lee Harvey Oswald. It sounded extremely strange. He didn’t recognize himself in the full intonation of the name. The only time he used his middle name was to write it on a form that had a space for that purpose. No one called him by that name. Now it was everywhere. He heard it coming from the walls. Reporters called it out. Lee Harvey Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald. It sounded odd, dumb, and made up. They were talking about somebody else.”


This status is exclusively given to Lee. Jack Ruby doesn’t earn the “privilege,” despite murdering Lee Oswald to be heroic, though he only ends up forever tying their names together in history. Maybe Ruby, too, should have tried going after a president instead… (hah, just kidding)


On a completely different note, I found a BBC article mentioning how the people that Lee Oswald lived with in Minsk, Russia, did not believe that he could be a killer. In fact, many had favorable impressions of him, most calling Oswald a “good guy” and defending him, saying he couldn’t be a murderer. One of Oswald’s former co-workers even requested the author of the article to leave flowers by Oswald’s grave for him back in the US. The author stated “I still haven't made up my mind what to do” in a sort of confusion between the testimonies of Oswald’s friends in Minsk and the fact that Oswald murdered President Kennedy.


“The request took me aback. I didn't know what to say. On the one hand, this was Oswald we were talking about - a man who may have slain a political leader and irrevocably altered world history. On the other hand, Zhidovich's appeal came from the heart.

I still haven't made up my mind what to do.”


(The article: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24945209)


I thought this was the perfect example of Lee’s story. Though much of the world knows him as a murderer shrouded in conspiracy, the people who met him and interacted with him in their daily lives had a favorable impression of the man, even going as far as to defend him from the allegations.


The accounts of the multiple people who knew him in Minsk paints Lee as a lonely man who enjoyed the attention as the sole American and one of few foreigners in Minsk. One of his acquaintances even said that “He thought he was the centre of the group” -- truly along the lines of the self-absorbed Lee Harvey Oswald painted in the novel who wrote himself a fake diary of his time in Minsk.


These two differing accounts of the story show the duality in Lee’s character. On one hand, he was the three-named man: the man who murdered Kennedy in cold blood and made a name for himself around the world. On the other hand, he was just a simple guy making friends at his job in Minsk. 

What was Lee’s true character? He’s dead now, so I guess we’ll never know. 

 

Comments

  1. Clara WoodMay 27, 2022 at 7:31 AM

    Yeah, I think the duality of Lee's character (or Lee Harvey Oswald's character...are they the same person? lol) is a really important theme in Libra. As the readers, we're shown this duality firsthand by looking into his thoughts and observing him at his most sympathetic moments (when he's getting bullied as a child, when he attempts suicide in Russia, when he falls in love with Marina, etc.) But we also see him trying to assassinate multiple people, including the President. At the end of the book, it was hard for me to conflate Lee with the Lee Harvey Oswald he becomes in history, who we see in the jail videos and the mugshots. However, it is an important question to ask: which side of Lee is his true character? Or is he a true Libra in nature, and his personalities exist perfectly in balance, until an outside force tips the scales? Sorry for this rant lol, great post and cool point!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AditiMay 27, 2022 at 10:23 PM

    That's interesting! I suppose we have to assume the Lee we know for most of the novel is the "true Lee," but one whose personality has a side to it that can become "three-named Lee." His reaction after his arrest does make me wonder, though, what Lee expected when he expressed wanting to be a big figure in history. How much of our true selves can be reflected by history books, and how much of that can we control? Anyways, great post!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnuprovaMay 28, 2022 at 7:37 AM

    Great post Jeana! I think your analysis of Lee's character is really interesting and I appreciate the extra research you did to add another layer of depth to Lee's story. Throughout most of the book, we see Lee as a social outcast who ends up becoming an assassinator, but not much else is said about how he interacted with those around him on a regular basis. The BBC article paints Lee as someone who left a good impression on those around him, and I find that really interesting. In a case of many murders, those who interacted with the murderer often say they are shocked and don't know how they could do something so evil. This really goes to show how we as people have learned to create two versions of ourselves for society and may never know a person's true nature.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ZainabMay 28, 2022 at 1:02 PM

    Nice post! The different sides of Lee Harvey Oswald are depicted throughout the story. First, he is introduced as a pure child outcasted from his peers, however, he slowly transforms into the three-named Lee. DeLilo highlights the earlier phases of Lee's transformation to draw sympathy for the notorious man we know. Therefore, those in Minski, as well as Lee's mother, believe in his good side rather than the side that decided to assassinate the president.

    ReplyDelete
  5. LiliMay 29, 2022 at 8:18 PM

    Wow this is such an interesting post. I think its super cool that you were able to find an article that ties back to your point and the book. Lee is definitely an interesting character both in the real and fictional world. Unfortunately we'll never be able to truly understand certain details now that he is dead.

    ReplyDelete

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