Existence And Rationality In History: Don De Lillo's Libra

Libra is a novel that takes the assassination of the former American President John·F·Kennedy as the subject,which is a historical event DeLillo disclosed in an interview that has exerted a considerable influence on his literary career.It guides the readers follow the thread of Oswald's life experience that runs the length of the novel to see how political contests has made the American social environment in the1950s-60 s nervous and suspicious and therefore caused people's mental depression and distorted human nature.Employing a unique narrative structure and postmodern technique and combining historical facts with imagination in Libra,DeLillo endows the historical event of the JFK assassination with a color of imagination.It definitely deserves to be considered one of DeLillo's most artistic works.Such a prominent novel has after its publication undoubtedly incurred an awfully variety of interpretations from various angles except the perspective of existentialism,but I assume that the idea DeLillo wants to deliver in Libra is highly consistent with that of Existentialism in many ways.Existentialism,which emerged after World War ?,kind of served as an antidote to the then western people whose life has been ruined by the war for its efforts in encouraging people to never give up and plunge into struggles so as to find the meaning of life.Libra is just about how people from different social backgrounds struggle hard to fight a way out according to their own wills of the turbulent and absurd reality.For those who finally get frustrated,they just keep trying.Based on the critical study on Don DeLillo's Libra,this thesis aims to study the existence of human beings during the period of Cold War in Libra from the perspective of Existentialism when individuals are trying to find the meaning of existence through making their own choices by involving themselves in the assassination of President John·F·Kennedy.This thesis is divided into three parts,including introduction,three chapters of body part,and the conclusion.The introduction provides information about Don DeLillo and his work Libra,together with literature review and the theory foundation.Chapter one depicts the existential experience in the novel which is characterized by the lonely and paranoid people living in an absurd world and the alienated relationship between individuals.Chapter two discusses the existential quest of individuals which is embodied by their different choices: Lee Oswald strives to enter the history by assassinating the president;the conspirators work on the plot of the assassination in hope of retrieving what they have lost;Jack Ruby accepts to kill Oswald so as to counteract his huge debts.Chapter three explores individuals' authentic existence,that is,all the struggling ones are being left alone as nobody again with disillusioned dreams and end up died.The conclusion summarizes man's contingent existence in an absurd world,affirms the significance of making choice and struggling to implement it and eulogizes the attitude of “being-towards-death.”...