[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

“immortality” and reassert them as “a force of history.” 395 Oswald is finally convinced
and shoots at the motorcade. In the final scene, the assassins sing once again that the
United States is a “Free country” in which “Everybody’s/Got the right/To their
dreams…” 396
Sondheim and Weidman’s Oswald places him firmly as part of the American
experience of criminal violence and assassination. He is not to be identified as someone
outside the mainstream of history. In other portrayals of Oswald as an anti-hero, the
details of Oswald’s life differ, including whether he is the lone gunman. Thornley and
Mailer emphasized his individualism and rebelliousness. DeLillo placed him at the
center of his novel as a protagonist who is part of a conspiracy involving the American
underworld and intelligence community. Sondheim and Weidman’s Oswald resembles
the Warren Commission portrait, but places him in a panoply of past and future
presidential assassins that reflect a society in which violence is glorified. All these works
use creative forms to delve deeper into the meaning of Oswald’s life, the assassination,
and American society. For DeLillo, Oswald is a pawn of nefarious forces active in the
United States. Thornley, Mailer, and Sondheim and Weidman portrayed Oswald as a true
American in some respects. Even thought Oswald’s left-wing views are out of the
mainstream of American political thought, his radical individualism reflects a deep string
in U.S. culture and society. This leads to terrible violence in Sondheim’s musical, but
395 Sondheim and Weidman, 100.
396 Sondheim and Weidman, 105, 107.
172