At this point in Libra, Lee Harvey Oswald is just Lee. He's not referred to by his full name, he's not an assassin, he's just Lee. Does this make him more of a sympathetic character? We talked in class today about how Lee kind of seems like a normal kid, kind of seems weird, and kind of seems like an asshole. I guess in order to figure out this character, we have to consider his circumstances.
He hasn't had a perfect upbringing. His mother didn't get a good settlement from her divorce with Mr. Ekdahl, which means he constantly has to move around, and he doesn't have a lot of friends and is a loner. I do kind of feel bad for him because he and his mother have struggled, and it can't be easy as a 13 year old to be so unstable. This might have to do with how he actually acts. He's rude to his mother and appears to look for trouble (he smirks when talking about how he got punched in the face. Not something that a lot of people would do). Perhaps one of the things that we've found to be most unusual about Lee is that he enjoys reading communist and Marxist propaganda as a young teenager. This might be something else that can be explained by his upbringing. I think what Aja said in class today was really interesting: while he may just be carrying around Das Kapital to show off to people how smart he is and to be a poser, it's definitely plausible that he might like this idea. A capitalist society hasn't benefited him or his mother, and the idea that there's a possibility for a change or something different might be appealing. I think with this background, DeLillo is able to make this character appear to be somewhat sympathetic, and if you don't consider the name Lee Harvey Oswald, the person he's describing could be anyone. It is still kind of weird that someone so young would want to read all of this Marxist literature, and that he bought a gun, but I don't know, Lee still isn't what I expected. He isn't painted like a villain, he isn't written like "Lee Harvey Oswald."
I wouldn't say that I entirely sympathize with Lee at this point because I still find him to be rude and he doesn't have the greatest personality, but it's certainly interesting how DeLillo has painted Lee Harvey Oswald from the history books as just a kind of weird kid in his teens. I'm interested to see him transform as he gets a little older (if he transforms at all?) What do you think about Lee?
