Postmodernist Conspiracies --- The Comforting Reality of Conspiracies
Don Delilo’s Libra offers a postmodernist interpretation of the JFK assassination, one that largely led to a shift in mistrust, skepticism, and conspiracy. Instead of presenting the assassination as a definitive event, Delilo imagines what could have happened, he effectively blurs the lines between factualization and fiction. By doing so, the main conspiracy in Libra aligns and sort-of further proves other depictions of the assassination that to this day resist closure. Delilo convinces the reader to consider that the assassination wasn’t a political tragedy, but a turning point for how Americans understood truth in its authority.
The first major event that produced widespread distrust in the U.S. government is often seen as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Prior to JFK, Americans settled skepticism with little resistance, however the confusion and accusations surrounding his death created an environment where people began to question everything. In order to prove certain events, historians had to get very specific details of Oswald's life, body, thoughts, clothing, etc. Events like Watergate align with the confusion that broke out because of JFK, and Watergate itself reinforced the skepticism of the government but the JFK assassination initiated it. Delilo captures the shift of skepticism in the government by reflecting a world that almost seems unnatural or no longer exists. A world where people are forced to imagine alternate narratives or solutions because the official or normalized one feels incomplete. It seems logical that Oswald would work alone, but then again it also seems illogical that Oswald would work alone. It becomes comforting to adopt a conspiracy.
In Libra, Delilo doesn’t try to prove what really happened, he is explaining how the assassination of JFK happened. He pieces together a web that connects the idea of whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or as a part of a larger conspiracy. He adds onto the question by sparking the idea that maybe Oswald was a part of the main conspiracy but it was without his knowledge. Oswald is portrayed both as an individual in the mystery and as a pawn. Delilo’s contradiction between Oswald being a pawn vs. an individual is intentional. He has created a narrative that feels plausible while also remaining completely unsolvable. This technique mirrors the way that conspiracies function. So then, the question is why the conspiracy feels possible, not whether or not the conspiracy is actually true.
Delilo also acknowledges real events and figures in history, providing Libra with an understandable reality while still breaking apart the reader's grasp of the truth. Were there 3 or 4 shots heard the day Kennedy was killed? Could Raymo be the second gunman? Was he the fourth gun shot? Did Oswald know there was a second gunman? Every depiction that Delilo lays out leads to another question, leaving the reader unsettled and in a constant state of questioning. By unsettling the narrative Delilo reflects a postmodern worldview where truth is fragmented.
To close, Libra backs up the idea that people find comfort in conspiracy theories because they provide meaning during times of chaos. Accepting that Oswald was the only gunman leaves room for coincidence, and meaning. Delilo shows why randomness gets difficult. By portraying a separate narrative, Libra shows how the JFK assassination became the building blocks for postmodernist thinking around conspiracies. It sparked the idea that nothing is easier said than done.
- Zoe Parker
I particularly like the way that DeLillo manages to have it both ways with Lee as "lone gunman": he clearly is part of a larger conspiracy, but they curate his experience of that plot so fully, telling him almost nothing as it is being developed, that even two days before Mackey can reflect on how Lee "wants to be the lone gunman"--and he enables Lee to assume that he IS the lone gunman. He knows he is doing this at the behest of an ambiguous "them," but he actually doesn't seem to know many names. When he's firing the shots, he DOES think that the whole thing rests on his shoulders. The moment when he realizes there's another shooter, and that this shooter has just killed the president, he instantly grasps that there's more to the picture--in a sense, Lee becomes the first conspiracy theorist in modern America (maybe after his mom, who was already on the conspiracy beat when he was in Russia). He realizes he's a "patsy," but he doesn't know too much about the actual plot. He couldn't tell authorities that Raymo is the other shooter, for example, let alone tell them how to find Raymo or what his real name is.
ReplyDeleteHi Zoe, I think that in the end Delillo will leave us wondering about what really happened, but just gives us one potential way to see how the assassination went down. Everybody has a narrative. The Cia/government does. Delillo does, randos on reddit do. I think that conspiracies are a way to explain something but also to cause people to rise up. And they get pretty crazy. There's actually people out there who think that fluoride in our water is something that our government is doing to control our mind. In my opinion I don't find that very comforting but ridiculous? It does make me laugh every time I hear it. I guess in a way it's comforting to know that people are worried about our health and making sure our government doesn't get too powerful...? -Mateo
ReplyDeleteHey Zoe, This is a thoughtful and nuanced analysis. I like how you connect the JFK assassination to the broader cultural shift toward skepticism and conspiracy, the link to Watergate strengthens your point about a growing distrust in the government.
ReplyDeleteHi Zoe, you make some great points about how the ideology behind Delillo's writing has a different motivation than a lot of the other ways the conspiracy of JFK's assassination has been framed. He effectively highlights the believability of the conspiracy and convinces the reader that the story he presents makes total sense by filling in the gaps. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Zoe! I love your post, especially the last paragraph which outlines a very interesting thought about why conspiracy theories exist. I think many conspiracy theories are comforting not in the sense that they give a perfect and true explanation, but that they can create a sense of community for the people that believe in it. I also think Libra demonstrates how easily words can misconstrue flat-out scientific evidence, yes of course many things need context to be understood correctly, but I think it can be very easy to create an insane, but not impossible, context for something that may have a much more simple context. I think people believe these types of conspiracies because no one wants something to be as “simple” as things may actually be.
ReplyDeleteHi Zoe! Your connection to postmodern skepticism is really interesting. I think it would benefit from a stronger theme in the conclusion. Great job!
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