Story of two Assassins

One of the most intriguing aspects in the latter sections of Libra is how Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby believe their actions are going to be represented versus what they eventually become associated with. In both cases, we see an act that seems motivated by an expected response from the general public, and in both cases the end result and the public perception in the aftermath of their assassinations is completely contradictory to the reaction they assumed the public would have. It is an interesting dynamic to explore as both of these men with their completely different motivations and situations end up in the same situation of having to face unexpected reactions from the public and seeing themselves represented as someone that they do not recognize in the media.

Lee goes in to the situation believing that he will be considered a Cuban hero and be welcomed into Cuba with open arms. He has an escape plan worked out that will have him end up in Havana and receive a new identity and allow him to start fresh in Cuba. Ferrie seemingly convinces Lee that he is meant to take the shot and that he is supposed to be a part of history. Everything is lined up for his associations to Cuba and his backstory and identity to be found in the aftermath of the assassination. However, when he is arrested, it becomes clear that he hasn’t exactly gotten the reputation he was going for. He seems to believe by the end that he was set up to be a lone gunman and he decides that he will give up everyone who was involved in the plot if he is asked.

Jack’s association with killing Lee plays out in almost the same way. He is repeatedly told that killing Lee would be a positive for the city of Dallas. Carmine offers to pay the $40,000 without ever collecting the debt if Jack Ruby just kills Lee. In much the same way as Lee, he is repeatedly assured of how easy it is and that he will be treated as a hero by the American public. However, when Jack does kill Lee, he experiences the same dynamic that Lee experienced earlier. He is quickly abandoned by those pushing him to commit the crime, and he is left to fend for himself against murder charges. Stunningly, Ruby even warns his cop friend Russell about the assassination he is planning, playing both sides of the coin till the bitter end. Just like Lee, by the end he seems to believe that he is meant to commit this murder that his role in history is to be the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald. However, he to becomes disillusioned by the public perception of his actions.

This similarity between the two important murders that the entire book has led up to is striking. In both cases, the would be assassin is strongly convinced that their killing is not only destined, but they are also certain of what the public reaction will be and how they will go down in history. However, the book shows that even if you do end up going down in history, you can’t dictate the terms of how you go down in history. For all of Lee’s planning, he ends up going down in history as a lone gunman who shot down JFK when he didn’t actually even kill JFK.

Lee Harvey Oswald's Characterization

We have quite a bit of time in the last few days of class discussing Lee’s characterization in the book. He is a really interesting character with some odd tendencies. His action often contradict each other in a way that makes you question them. For example, why would he join the US Marines if he was convinced that Marxism was the correct government for the world to operate under? His circumstances and situation are so unusual that he throws any conventional narrative out the window. There isn’t a clear agenda or plan behind everything he does in this time period, and he seems to just be making decisions in the moment. It doesn't help that he seems to have a hard time making friends and doesn’t really seem to fit in with any community. He seems out of place in New York, but later on when he moves to New Orleans, he still feels ostracized. This leads him to turn towards Russia and communism, but even there, while he doesn’t fit with the Marines, he doesn’t quite fit in with the Russian side either. He seems to be caught in the middle without a clear place in society.

Clearly, he is a character who does things that are sometimes inexplicable, and he is a perfect candidate to be the face for the assassination. It would be believable to the public that someone like Lee could attempt an assassination given his history and personality. He almost seems built for the role, as he seems to enjoy the fact that he is a staunch communist living in America. It gives him a sense of satisfaction to go against the public opinion and break convention just because he can. We see this side of Lee all the time as he seems to constantly needle people and instigate them. No matter where he goes, it seems like he takes pleasure in angering others with his comments. This characteristic in particular leads to a character who seems lost in the world, and it makes him a perfect target for the conspirators.

There is no doubt that his character is a very unique one so far in the book. He isn't easily explainable, we don't feel sympathy for him, and yet he doesn't seem like an inherently bad person. He has the tendency to get into arguments and fights and takes pleasure in it. Some of his actions just don't seem to make sense, he does things regardless of the consequences and without thinking about if he really wants to do them just in order to create arguments. It's almost like he started reading communist ideology in order to stand out from the everyday American. He seems like he lacks an identity, and that he desires an identity, no matter what he is known for. So far, Lee seems like a person who wants to be remembered, whatever it takes. 

Kevin and Rufus in Kindred

When we were discussing Kindred in class, we talked a lot about how Kevin reacted to the situation that him and Dana were placed in when he was taken to the past with her. Kevin sees the scene in early 19th century as a relief; he thinks that it is not as bad as some of the depictions of the time, and he willingly plays his role in the society. However, I think that given the circumstances, Kevin actually reacts for the most part in a reasonable way and the his reactions speak more to the disturbing qualities of human nature than his particular character flaws. We see Kevin in 1976 as at least somewhat progressive compared to the times, and he is mostly a nice person. However, when thrown into the context of the slavery era south, he makes insensitive remarks and seems a little out of touch with the true hardships the black slaves face. We can see this partially as a way that many southern whites could have justify slavery. Even if they had their qualms, from their point of view they spun the relationship to be mutually beneficial. This mentality helps normal people detach themselves from the brutality of the way they treat their slaves and allows them to go on living the way they do without dealing with the morality question constantly. Still, Kevin is true to his beliefs. After Dana returns to the present, Kevin goes up North, and he clearly risks his life to help some slaves escape, showing that he is still trying to help in any way possible. That shows strength that many people don’t have. When faced with a toxic situation, most humans tend to fall into step with the masses, especially when it benefits them. Everyone in Nazi Germany was probably not racist, but most went along with the Holocaust anyways while a few of them did what they could to help the Jews at risk to their own life. Kevin is at least in that crowd who is willing to risk his well being for the sake of his beliefs.



Throughout the book, Kevin and Rufus are compared and contrasted in a lot of ways, and it is insinuated at times that Kevin and Rufus are similar people. However, in the end, Rufus transforms into another brutal slave owner with no regard for the blacks. We can see the vicious cycle that keeps slavery in action through Rufus’ growth. Rufus isn’t born racist, and he seems to trust and respect Dana at least. However, he slowly becomes indoctrinated with the ideas of slavery and how he is the master. He feels the need to assert himself at times because he is constantly told that is what he has to be able to do. While Rufus seems like a poor example because he had Dana trying to help him see the truth about slavery, many slave owners were probably taught from a very young age the ideals that go along with slavery. If the same people were born in a different time to different parents, they could’ve been completely different characters with different views and opinions. I think that Kindred does a lot to expose the importance of context to how a person reacts. People will behave differently in different situations, and if someone is born into a southern household, they will most likely end up as a slave owner and a racist just because that is the culture they grew up in.

Dresden Bombing: Competing Narratives

The Dresden firebombing is one of the more controversial aspects of World War II history. There are two competing narratives in the case of the bombing. The Allied justification is that with the Soviets advancing quickly on the eastern front, bombing Dresden would severely hamper German troop mobility and arms production and hasten the end of the war. At this stage in the conflict, it is clear that Germany will eventually lose the war, as the Soviets had already advanced past pre-war German borders, but according to Allied leaders, area bombing of Dresden would help the Soviets break through the final German defenses and bring the end of the war. The other side believes that the bombing of Dresden was a useless destruction of a cultural city that had very few military targets and was housing over one hundred thousand refugees at the time of the bombing.

One thing that we have discussed some in class is the idea of the death toll being conflicted. German propaganda had the death toll at nearly 200,000, while recent estimates from studies done by historians claim as few as 25,000 deaths. With that huge of a difference in the death count, it is of little surprise that this is a controversial event. Vonnegut claims that about 130,000 people died in his novel, which is a fair estimate based on the time it was written. When people are criticizing Vonnegut for the number, I think it is important to note that at the time Slaughterhouse-Five, this was considered a fair estimate. Another claim that Vonnegut makes is far more interesting: “And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the firebombing of Dresden. So it goes” (Vonnegut). Here, Vonnegut claims that the firebombing of Dresden was the greatest massacre in European history. This claim is a little more controversial, especially since we are talking about World War II. It can be argued that the Holocaust is an assortment of many massacres, and doesn’t quite fit under the massacre situation, but in any case, this is an interesting claim to make due to Europe’s long history of warfare and massacres. While Vonnegut is clearly not claiming the bombing of Dresden was worse than the Holocaust, he is giving people that do and opportunity to use his work.

Even if Vonnegut’s claim that Dresden was the greatest massacre in history isn’t quite indisputable, and even if the 130,000 number is disputed, I still think that the main point of Slaughterhouse-Five holds. The fact that when people quote the 25,000 figure, it is usually written as “only 25,000” shows just how devastating the bombing was. The war was basically won, and at that point the only question was whether the war ended in May or November. The tension between Allied forces was probably a driving factor in the hasty decision making. In 1945, the seeds of the Cold War are already planted, and an extra layer of tension is added when Poles find out that the post-war agreement between the Soviets and the Western Allies concedes parts of Poland to the Soviet union. Many Poles who were fighting with the British were angered by this, especially considering Britain entered the war to guarantee Poland’s independence in the first place. With all this tension among leaders of the various Allied powers, rash decisions were made in an attempt to win the war. Dresden was an avoidable massacre, and thousands of lives were taken for no good reason.

Order in Chaos: Mumbo Jumbo

Mumbo Jumbo is a book that doesn’t easily lend itself to immediate interpretation, and yet the narrative that comes together at the end of the book is a coherent story that questions and critiques aspects of society in ways that still have meaning today. The battle between people obsessed with order and keeping everything under control against those who are constantly innovating and coming up with new ways to experience life is one that has existed in different forms throughout human history. This basic struggle is critiqued in many ways throughout the novel, with the main vehicle for it being Jes Grew and the impact it has on American culture in the early 20th century, where Jes Grew is analogous to the beginnings of jazz music which gave people unique and different music that wasn’t initially a part of mainstream American popular culture.

Earlier this semester, I wrote a blog post on how Reed’s voice and his distinct way of describing certain things while omitting others seemingly at random helped emphasize the point the book was making. Finishing the book has given me perspective on that point and made the book as a whole a much more complete experience. The book forms a narrative out of seemingly disconnected, disjointed events, however these events come together to represent the struggle between the establishment and novelty. The incredible thing about Mumbo Jumbo is that while discussing the struggle between new ideas and established social norms, the novel itself breaks the established norms for writing a novel. Right from the start, it doesn’t even pretend to be a conventional narrative, and this decision only helps drive home the point that the the novel makes through the content delivered.

In many ways, the narrative of Mumbo Jumbo is a structure that can be applied to many different situations throughout history. The narrative is framed as a struggle for the Book of Thoth between different factions and societies in an attempt to either quell or spread Jes Grew. However, this in turn represents the attempts of whites to suppress the growth of Jazz music and the influx of black culture into the American mainstream. This narrative is an example of a more general social phenomenon, which is the idea that new ideas and changing culture can scare some people and create conflict similar to the culture conflict caused by jazz in the early twentieth century. Now that I have finished the book, I appreciate the entire narrative and how, despite the individual parts being written in a jarringly unique style, the book forms a coherent narrative that explores this social conflict while simultaneously challenging the norms for a "standard" novel, and threatening the established standards for a good book by changing the way a novel can be written.

Mumbo Jumbo: Voice and Description

Mumbo Jumbo is an interesting book to read for many reasons. One of the main reasons that the book is so different and jarring than most other novels is the way Ishmael Reed tells the story. There are parts of the book where the voice becomes so distant that you would think that the line was part of a summary rather than part of the actual novel while other lines are just as descriptive and detailed as any other novel. There seems to be an effort to give the audience only part of the picture and leave the rest to be interpreted by each reader for themselves. This ambiguity in certain sections of the book along with the pace at which the book whips from one storyline to the next without much warning makes for an extremely disorienting and confusing start to the novel. The entire book seems to embrace the idea of a narrative being confusing and disjointed. The idea that a historical narrative can be told through a coherent story from a fixed perspective is challenged throughout the book with the style that Reed uses.

Here is an example of a sentence that seems to be more at home in a synopsis of the chapter than actually in the chapter: “They see Berbelang and a well-dressed young blond White man whom they recognize from the society pages as Thor Wintergreen, the son of a famous tycoon.” (Reed 30). This sentence describes Papa LaBas and Earline seeing Berbelang and Thor Wintergreen. However, the distance in this sentence was striking to me since Reed just tells us they meet these two instead of describing the scene or how they met them. It goes directly from them meeting to then describing dialogue, eliminating details about the atmosphere or the manner in which the meeting took place in a way that seems more like summarizing events than writing a novel.

This scene is made even more interesting by the way Reed treats the interaction between Abdul, Black Herman, and Papa LaBas, where everyone’s reactions and their thoughts are seemingly much more apparent and the characters get their own description before the meeting with Papa LaBas. We get the picture of Papa LaBas entering the room and the reactions from both Black Herman and Abdul in a way that is strangely omitted in the interaction with Berbelang and Thor Wintergreen. Right away, we see the difference in the descriptions, as Papa Labas is seen standing in the doorway after we get a detailed description of both the room and the appearance of the characters inside the room that Papa Labas will be interacting with. As Papa LaBas walks into the room, Abdul is described as staring “sneeringly at his shoes. Then his face.”(Reed 33). This is one of many examples where Reed mixes and matches different elements that are often considered standard in a novel to create a chaotic narrative, and one that isn’t coherent and clean nor is it intended to be.

Historical Figures in Ragtime

Ragtime is an interesting book that uses famous figures from the early 20th century in various ways. As we have discussed in class, Doctorow’s description of these characters is in many cases ambiguous and open to interpretation while also adding quirks to the historical figures that make them more like fictional characters with characteristics that are specific to the novel. This dynamic creates characters that, while based on historical figures, are unique and interesting in part because of the development that Doctorow gives them in the book.

One particularly clear example of this is Evelyn Nesbit. Her foray into political activism and supporting Emma Goldman’s causes are things that cannot possibly be derived from the historical record, and yet these events are integral part of the Evelyn Nesbit that exists in the world of Ragtime. The historically accurate part of Evelyn Nesbit’s life involves Harry K Thaw murdering Stanford White. It is also entirely possible that Thaw promised Nesbit compensation for a favorable testimony in the trial. However, everything else in the book seems to be completely baseless, not grounded in historical facts but rather just based on Doctorow developing the character of Evelyn through fictional events. Her main identity and the character development that she experiences throughout the novel is in no way backed up by the historical record, and yet it seems like a believable reaction to be drawn to politically radical ideas, especially after being subjected to a media circus during Harry K. Thaw’s trial. The scrutiny and criticism that was most likely leveled at her throughout the process creates an environment where the route her character takes in Ragtime is believable, even if it isn’t backed up by fact.

Another example of this dynamic is in the depictions of JP Morgan and Henry Ford. Doctorow portrays JP Morgan as lonely and troubled. He looks to Egyptian pharaohs and reincarnation to explain to himself why he is in the position he has reached. It seems as if Morgan is exceedingly arrogant in other parts of the description of him, he complains about having no intellectual peers and everybody he meets seems to leave him unsatisfied. Yet, seeing himself as a reincarnation of a pharaoh is some ways a humble idea. It is almost as if Morgan is acknowledging that there has to be a reason that he is on a different plane of intelligence. He can’t believe that it is possible that he reached this position in life without randomness or a divine factor that allowed him to reach the pinnacle. Ford, in contrast is portrayed as extremely focused and almost obsessed with the process. He invented the assembly line, and he acts like it. Everything to Ford can be simplified, and nothing is as complicated as it seems. Ford is developed outside of the historical bounds in a completely different way. Both are tied together by the common thread of reincarnation, but they come to the conclusion that reincarnation is real through very different means. Ford reading about it in a cheap book shows us the contrast between the two characters. Just like JP Morgan is an extension of his profession as a banker, Ford is an extension of his invention; the assembly line.

Doctorow utilizes historical figures in unique ways, giving them each details and characterization that helps flesh out the characters. By turning these historical figures into fictional characters, he gives them meaning in Ragtime. The book utilizes historical figures, but it never makes an attempt to be realistic fiction. The historical figures stick to historical record when it exists, but in cases where it doesn’t, Doctorow improvises, developing these figures into characters through strange, somewhat believable events that subtly distinguish the overall image of the character in some way compared to their historical counterpart. .