Oedipus Radicalized

Abstract

Bob Chase recounts a moment in his life when he felt compelled to define himself and his position within narratives of twentieth-century history. Finding himself, by accident, in the glare of the media, he was forced to rethink his own past and to construct a narrative that could explain his public image to himself and to others. Using memories of World War II and of an isolated, rural, impecunious, Christian, American childhood during which he had experienced the unnecessary death of his mother, he confronted his fantasies about Germany and his passionate opposition to the Vietnam War, and positioned himself within the narratives of historical materialism.