I dislike Oswald.
Not necessarily because he killed JFK, but for many other reasons. He's cocky, arrogant, abusive towards his wife, selfish, and attention-seeking. Basically, he has a God Complex. He really needs some humbling. And based on the story, it seems like most of the other characters agree. One character commented on his “punchable face,” and when Oswald claimed he was smarter than the rest of the soldiers in Atsugi, one of them said he was “dumber too.” So, people hating Oswald seems like a universal thing; he’s just that type of guy.
From his youth, Oswald always acted as if he was better than everyone else. He didn’t go to school, read the whole US navy manual, and found it amusing when other kids picked on him. My take on these behaviors is that Oswald sees himself as an elite being. He doesn’t have time to partake in things that ordinary people do such as going to school. He thinks it’s funny that these puny kids could dare to interact with him (even though they destroy him, but still). His ego is huge, and this personality is quite annoying to be around.
He pretends to be mysterious for the sake of attention. Really, everything he does can connect back to attention. He poses with his guns and copies of his socialist newspapers. He purposefully takes actions to "get Castro's attention," such as planning to shoot General Walker on the Bay of Pigs anniversary (though that failed). He has a billion fake names, some of them for no justified reason.
He also doesn't even feel human to me. DeLillo rarely provides Oswald with emotions, so the whole time it feels like Oswald is just a robot. I find it hard to feel any sort of sympathy for him while reading because he has no emotions that I could connect to. This aspect of the story isn't necessarily DeLillo's fault though, since he didn't have enough information to go off of when creating Oswald, which further supports my point.
Basically, Oswald sucks. Every time we read his chapters, I get more infuriated with him and I think about how much I don't want to be in his position. But, his storyline is also the most comprehensible compared to the "plot plot," so I guess it evens out(?). Eh, maybe not. He still sucks.
I completely agree - throughout the entire story, Oswald seems out of touch with reality and the rest of the world. So much of what he does is for show. He reads propaganda around other people to look smart and memorizes the Navy manual to annoy security guards. Aside from the fact that he is crazy for attention, Oswald really has no other personality traits, at least in the novel. He held himself above everyone around him because he believed that you needed to stand out to get attention, which made him a really unlikable character (and it seems person as well). Great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree. I was a little sympathetic to the dyslexic kid at the beginning of the book who was always getting beat up by other kids but at this point I really don't care that Mackey wants to set him up to get killed. He just sucks and I do not have any sympathy towards him at this point and he hasn't even shot JFK yet.
ReplyDeleteOswald definitely flies by the seat of his pants, and I agree it can make him seem extremely obnoxious throughout Libra. His smirk that we see really shown how so many people are able to hate him, and throughout Libra, I got the sense that he was full of himself. His personality also lacks, as I get the feeling that he isn't very fun at parties. Good post!
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you in that I hate Oswald too, which might be purposeful on DeLillo's part, I don't know. But on the other hand I thought that DeLillo tried to make him more relatable and tried to make us more sympathetic towards him, which definitely did not work for me (actually it made me kind of more scared of him). DeLillo often kind of shrugs off his actions, which forces us to be like "wait a second, that's messed up". Maybe that's just me though, I can't really tell. Anyways, great job!
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I agree that his arrogance is a big characteristic that makes me not like him. The book is also interesting, because at the same time as making him unlikeable, DeLillo tries to add things into the novel that make him likeable. Overall, great job.
ReplyDeleteAs much as Oswald gets manipulated and picked on by other people and makes me feel bad for him, a lot of the time he has it coming and I would totally be on the side of the people being mean to him. All of your points about his god complex are completely accurate and definitely contributes to his unlikeable nature along with how he constantly makes annoying decisions (although those are often the result of his god complex too).
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