Throughout this book we’ve seen Lee shift his goal to fit with whatever circumstance he’s given-- ultimately to try to benefit himself the most. We’ve seen this with the Russian defector business but mostly recently and consequently with the Kennedy assassination. Although he goes for what benefits him the most, it’s interesting to think about what role Marina and the children have in his decision to shoot JFK.
At the beginning, Lee definitely wasn’t on board with shooting Kennedy when Ferrie proposed it to him. It didn’t match up with his plans for Cuba, so it didn’t matter to him. Ferrie trying to get into his brain with his monologue saying, “Think of two parallel lines. One is the life of Lee Oswald. One is the conspiracy to kill the President. What bridges the space between them?” This didn’t have an effect on him even though it seemed pretty manipulative (339). Even after that conversation Lee is still planning to go to Mexico City. He only seems to agree to shoot Kennedy after all his other options run out that would make his Cuba plan run smoothly. Once Ferrie offers him all he wanted with Cuba in exchange for shooting the president, Lee finally decides to go along with it.
Before he finally commits, he seems generally focused on trying to give Marina a better life.
“They’d get their own furniture, modern pieces, and a washing machine for Marina.” (382).
When Ferrie goes to pick him up, he says he doesn’t want to be late to work because he is still devoted to the thought of giving Marina a better life. I feel like Lee is more hesitant about going through with killing JFK at this point because he knows that would end everything that he and Marina has (I guess which is partly why he leaves everything of value he has with her the day he was going to assassinate JFK). One thing that puzzled me was that he even asked Marina to come live with him even after he committed to shooting the president. Do you think he still would have gone through with shooting JFK if she had agreed to go with him? Do you see Lee struggling here with an inner battle between his want to support his family and his want to go down in history?
In the end, Lee ultimately chooses historical fame over his family. From reading the sections about him, I got the impression that he was constantly switching back and forth between which of those two things he wanted more and was just overall deeply conflicted. Did anyone else get that impression?
I definitely got that impression too. I agree that Lee enjoys his family and the love that his wife and his mother give him makes him happy. In a way, some of the efforts Lee makes to give his family a better life are truly inspiring and make me like him a lot. But in the end, he seems to be sacrificing all of that love for his own legacy and place in history. This is all very sad and ironic because Lee lost a parent at an early age and you would think that he would want his daughter to not experience and go through some of the things he had to deal with in his childhood.
ReplyDeleteIt's especially hard to reconcile Lee's decision to shoot the president with the fact that he, at times, could be a doting father who loved playing with little June. It's inconceivable to me that he can calmly walk away from this young family (an infant daughter, just born) on that Friday morning, never to see them again. But then, this inconsistency is reflected in the historical record--Lee could be quite different people at different times, and his biography is full of contradictions. (And these contradictions have struck some commentators as suspicious, evidence of a frame-up or of tampering with the historical record.)
ReplyDeleteBut I don't know that we can say definitively that Ferrie's "parallel-lines" narrative has no impact on Lee. By his own account, Ferrie is playing the long game--in the process of "getting into Lee's head." Lee has no reaction at the time, but we know how well this idea of destiny or fate reflects his way of seeing himself and his efforts to "enter history." There may be a subsurface cumulative effect going on here, where Ferrie makes him come to see the assassination as "inevitable," an opportunity he can't pass up. Even if that means walking away from his baby daughters.
I don't really know how Lee's actions would have been different if he'd convinced Marina to live with him. However, I think he would probably still have gone through with the assassination. As we've seen earlier in the book, Lee and Marina living together don't stay happy/stable for very long. In the book, Lee is also perfectly willing to involve his family in some parts of his schemes (hiding his rifle in Ruth Paine's house, getting Marina to take pictures, trying to convince her to hijack a plane with him, etc.). I think ultimately he's more willing to give up his family than his dreams of greatness.
ReplyDeleteI don't really remember ever hearing how Lee feels about Marina after they move to the US. We get to see his abuse, their arguments, and his outward behavior towards his children, but the only emotional perspective we get is Marina's. She misses the old Lee and her ex-boyfriend, so I'm pretty sure if Lee does love Marina, she doesn't feel (or benefit from) it. It's all intentions and failed actions with Lee, and I doubt Marina's decision to stay with him or go was more than a drop in the why-don't-I-shoot-the-president bucket.
ReplyDeleteI think it's odd that it is so easy for Lee to leave his family for proceeding with the assassination. However, earlier, when he asks Marina to photograph him in all black, holding guns, and a "militant" magazine, it becomes obvious that Lee is doing what he is doing for fame and praise. I think that typical Lee at that time (during the photograph) would want this fame to transfer to his family and benefit them as well because he does seem to care about them at times. I think it becomes complicated later on because it seems that Lee doesn't fully understand that meaning of shooting the president and just improvises the best solution for his mission, which ultimately leaves his family alone. So ultimately, it seems that his desire to become famous is more important to him than his family is to him.
ReplyDelete