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The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Secret Agency: American Individualism in Oswald's Tale and Libra: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Secret Agency: American Individualism in Oswald's Tale and Libra (view source)
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authors depiction of Oswald and the specific goals of their authorial | authors depiction of Oswald and the specific goals of their authorial | ||
projects: “[T]his activity, when it is found in writing, offers a traceable exemplification of possible political and social activities” (viii). | projects: “[T]his activity, when it is found in writing, offers a traceable exemplification of possible political and social activities” (viii). | ||
''Oswald’s Tale'' and ''Libra'', then, are expressly political works. Oswald’s | |||
bid for selfhood complicates ''Executioner’s'' nuanced critique of individualism in American life. Mailer reads Oswald’s crime as an Emersonian act | |||
of self-making—both audacious and peculiarly American. For DeLillo, | |||
Oswald’s act of murder adds an unsettlingly literal dimension to Gilmore’s | |||
last-ditch negative agency: The predication of Oswald’s life on Kennedy’s | |||
death suggests a kind of zero-sum game in which celebrity status confirms | |||
personhood. | |||