“He was just riding to ride.”(3) In Don DeLillo’s Libra a story is told. A story of chance. A story of one-man whose life is like the train that’s he is on. He rides just to ride. Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shoot and killed John F. Kennedy. DeLillo has created a fictitious story out of the events related to the assignation of John F. Kennedy. DeLillo creates an elaborate charter out of Lee Harvey Oswald in order to show a “truer” Oswald, not just a picture of a killer. Oswald’s life was one of uncertainty and indecision. He had no direction from within himself; he believed that a higher force was controlling his life. Was it an outside force that directed the story of his life, or just pure chance? Chance is a powerful thing and I believe that it played a huge part in Oswald’s life. Chance was the train and he was just riding to ride.
Throughout the novel DeLillo tries to put us into the mind of Oswald. In the passage that starts on page 333 we see clearly through Oswald’s perspective, and what some would consider schizophrenia. DiLillo uses
In the end Delillo paints a complex but understandable picture of Oswald. We see a man who is struggling with his identity. Throughout his life he has always thought if he could just get to a certain place, like Russia, things would be perfect. The harder he tries the more apparent it becomes that this is not the answer. Oswald doesn’t know how to be happy. To try to compensate he gives himself in to the higher force that he believes works in his life, and which he believes will make him happy. He does this and then starts to believe that he really is being controlled by something higher and greater. He always looks for that next thing to make him happy. In the end it was this struggle that would be his demise. The higher plan wanted him to get caught and wanted him to die. There was nothing he could do to stop this. He was riding just to ride.
Oswald had a strange perception on reality. The line between a higher force and chance was blurry in Oswald’s eyes. “Everything was taken care of. It’s falling into place.”(334) In the midst of Oswald’s wandering thoug
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