Commentary on Libra's shooting scene

Résumé du document

Libra is a novel written by Don Delillo and published in 1988. It deals with the life of Lee
Harvey Oswald in parallel with the plotters of the conspiracy which led him to be charged with
John Fitzgerald Kennedy's murder. This extract is the climax of the novel, the scene where the
President is shot in the head. How does this passage embody the complexity of the whole
book? This is what we will try to analyze first focusing on the chaotic atmosphere of the scene,
then on Bobby Hargis's point of view and to finish we will examine the media aspect.In this shooting scene, people are overwhelmed by panic. There is a man "already deep in chaos" (line 6), "a girl in a pretty coat running across the lawn toward the President'scar" (line 17-18) and in the end "People were down on the grass" (line 23). Hence the
protection attempts like "a man [who] threw his kid to the ground and fell on him" (line13-14) but also "the Governor, Connally, kind of sliding down in the jump seat and his wife taking him in, gathering the man in" (line 15-16) The same way a child was protected by his father, the Governor was protected by his wife. Whatever the family link, sex or hierarchical position, they go through the same ordeal and have the same human reaction. On the other hand, the
narrator refers to a "man [who] stood applauding" (line 5-6), which is ironical considering that
the President was at the same moment wounded in the throat from the first shot. There is also
an exception already obvious in its italics type "Put me on, Bill. Put me on" (line 8).

Extraits

[...] Moreover, the double opposition "left" (line 5 and and "right" (line 17 and 18) therefore repeated twice each, and Hargis being on a motorcycle, attests that he is trying hard to find a balance, to make sure things take a less dangerous turn. The danger is also suggested in the sentence "He kept his mouth closed tight so the fluid would not ooze in" (line 23-24), implicitely refering to the silence of the CIA concerning the conspiracy, along with the fact that if someone talks, blood will run. This was experienced by David Ferrie who was assassinated shortly after being interviewed. As a police "escort", Hargis' job is to protect. [...]

[...] The lexical field of media and appearance prevails through the whole text : "picture" (line and "looked" (line "looking" (line "noticing" (line 17) . Also belonging to the lexical field, the homonym "shot" (line and 21) designing both the act of shooting and a photograph, accented with the successive sentences "There was a woman taking a picture and another woman about twenty feet behind her taking the same picture, only with the first woman in it. He couldn't tell where the shots were coming from, two shots . [...]

[...] He is indeed not only charismatic but also very popular. People like him to the extent of calling him by his childhood nickname "Jack" (line as he was a full-fledged family member for many. In the text, he seems to be portrayed as a King, "The car's interior was a nice light blue" (line blue being the Nobles' color as Kings were rumored to have blue blood. The fact that "There were roses on the seat between Jack and Jackie" (line can also be interpreted as an allusion to the emblem of the Tudors' dynasty, linked to the famous Kennedy clan. [...]

[...] In the text, it is also conveyed through the expression "the blood and matter, the unforgettable thing" (line 19-20) and the sentence "The stuff hit him like a spray of buckshot and he heard it ping and spatter on his helmet" (line 21 to 23). Indeed, even though the determinant "the" expresses something specific, "matter", "thing", "stuff" and the pronoun are vague terms. As a matter of fact, it is as if it was hard for the narrator to clearly name this the fatal shot in the head. This statement is stressed by the hyperbole "unforgettable", which shows that it was a traumatizing event for everyone. [...]

[...] What they seem to do here is to make themselves noticed by the beautiful couple. In addition to that, "There was a woman taking a picture and another woman about twenty feet behind her taking the same picture" (line 10-11) : "take a picture" is a way for them to capture this beauty, to own it, a way to get closer to what they admire. Finally, it is possible to assume that the "girl in a pretty coat running across the lawn toward the President's car" (line 16-17) polished her look to resemble Jackie Kennedy, known for her elegance. [...]