Oswald and Ruby, Ruby and Oswald

 When we started reading the part of Libra on Jack Ruby, something immediately stood out to me: the eerie similarity between Ruby and Lee. They're obviously different in a lot of ways (Ruby is trying to take out loans from the mafia, whereas Lee is advocating for communism and the advancement of communist ideals in the United States). 

The similarity, however, lies in their personalities and the way in which they are viewed by the world. They are both guys with really bold ideas who think they are important in the grand scheme of things, but with huge insecurities. Everyone else around them views them as a joke, and the serious actions they take (Lee going to the Soviet Union or Ruby beating the guy up) aren't really seen as that important. No one thinks they are actually a danger or at risk of really acting on their words, which is really interesting when you think about what they both end up doing.

Obviously, Oswald ends up assassinating John F Kennedy and Ruby ends up killing Oswald, which is maybe the most extreme you can get with regards to turning words into action. No one takes them seriously until the very end, when it's too late. And at that point, their lives are so mysterious and contradicting that no one can piece together what really happens.

I know this is a really surface-level analysis, but I was really interested by this parallel, especially since it's largely historically true. What caused them both to not be taken seriously (as they outwardly showed pretty extreme opinions and instances of violence) up until they literally killed people?

Comments

  1. Luke YouMay 27, 2022 at 8:06 AM

    Yeah, I also found it interesting how Lee could just do whatever he wanted and got seemingly few consequences until the very end. But I'm not sure if they were necessarily treated as unimportant. I think at least part of the reason Jack and Lee got as far as they did was because the people who did take notice of them thought that they couldn't be bothered to intervene and should just let somebody else take care of it.

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  2. AditiMay 27, 2022 at 10:14 AM

    I agree with everything you said, and I think that in addition to people not worrying about Lee and Jack until it was too late, people kind of underestimating their actions but recognizing their strong beliefs is what made others such as Ferrie think (accurately) that they could manipulate them and point their guns in whatever direction they wanted, so to speak. The similarities are, as you say, eerie. Nice post!

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  3. Charlie HechlerMay 27, 2022 at 2:53 PM

    Nice post Lorenzo! I also found this parallel very interesting. Lee and Jack were also about as equally as manipulatable. On their own they might not have been the most dangerous people, but their impressionability and insecurities allowed them to be coerced into doing very extreme things, in this case murder.

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  4. Cpt. Jack SparrowMay 28, 2022 at 6:24 PM

    I think it's pretty poetic that such opposite and yet still similar characters end up being the cause of each other's demise. Lee assassinating Jack's beloved president and being the ultimate cause of the end of Jack's life as a businessman and Jack being the literal end of Lee's life by killing him (with help from the mob). As for what caused people to not take them seriously, I think it's the fact that they're both so incredibly over the top that they couldn't possibly be a threat to anyone.

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  5. LiliMay 29, 2022 at 8:22 PM

    Great post! I definitely agree how interesting it is that these two different characters can be so similar. We see that come together at the very end of the novel when they are kind of placed together in history. He thought he was doing a good thing and would be a hero, but instead he becomes a part of Lee.

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