Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation

Throughout Assassination Vacation Sarah Vowell attempts to humanize each of the assassins. She gives a detailed perspective on Czolgosz's motivation to kill McKinley and lays out the role of Booth’s so-called patriotic dedication to the Confederacy played in his assassination of Lincoln (i.e. it wasn’t simply hatred or lunacy), but her approach to President Garfield’s killer is different. Vowell’s sarcasm is very present in her discussion of Guiteau, and the manner in which she presents his motives, personality, and backstory is unique from her analyses of Czolgosz or Booth.

Firstly, when Vowell introduces Guiteau she refers to him as Garfield’s “cracked mirror image,” detailing how the two grew up under somewhat similar circumstances and how they had an uncanny mutual appreciation for the song “John Brown’s Body” (136). This contrasts with her introductions of Booth and Czolgosz, both radical

political idealogues, but neither insane. Of the first she says “this is whom we’re dealing with- not the raving madman of assassination lore, but calculating, philosophical racist,” and of Czolgosz, a politically motivated anarchist, “a scruffy southern laborer” (23, 214). When examining the different approaches Vowell takes for each of these murderers, her analysis of Guiteau stands out almost solely because of it’s utter rapidness. While Vowell allows Booth some order of intelligence and Czolgosz some degree of simplicity, presenting the clear political motivations of each, she affords Guiteau none of these, showing him as a self-indulgent, unlikable, and hasty man with no rational political motivation for his crime. “I conceived of the idea of removing the President four weeks ago” he writes, showing that his motives are spur-of-the-moment, not calculated like his fellow assassins (169). Vowell’s presentation of him this way is likely because she not only believes him insane, but also because she probably feels a greater degree of sympathy for Garfield than the other presidents since the most important thing he did in office was die. In addition, his writings and testimony certainly lead to the conclusion of insanity more readily than those of the other two men.

Vowell’s sketch of Guiteau’s backstory is similarly distinct from those of Booth and Czolgosz. In Booth’s case, she paints him as a conniving southern spy whose expertise in the espionage industry, pain at his “nation” having suffered defeat, and hatred of Lincoln for his role in ruining the south prepare him for what he sees as a patriotic duty in killing the president. For Czolgosz, she illustrates a sad story of a poor midwestern-southern laborer whose life is turned upside down by the gilded age, and who, because of this, is drawn to anarchism and violence. While Vowell does do her journalistic in presenting the obvious lack of mental faculties in Czolgosz, readers are undoubtedly meant to feel more sympathy for the man who “suffered some sort of mysterious breakdown” than the man who “penned a bizarre little play” about God sentencing the press to Hell (215, 176). In presenting the audience with a portrait of Guiteau’s early life, she examines his time both in a free-love colony. During his time in the Oneida residence (the free love colony) Guiteau is referred to as “Charles Gitout,” the man that “no one wanted to sleep with” (146). This, along with his father’s statement of “I regard him as insane,” paint a rather unsympathetic portrait of the future assassin (147).

Lastly, Vowell’s examination of Guiteau’s trial puts the final nails in the coffin.

Using his own words to show him as the lunatic murdered he is, Vowell presents the audience with three of Guiteau’s indisputably mental writings. The first, a plea to General Sherman, demands his assistance in escaping jail: “Please order out your troops, and take possession of the jail at once. Very respectfully, Charles Guiteau” (165). This alone is enough to convince the least attentive reader of Guiteau’s distance from reality. Next, however, are Guiteau’s play and song. In the play, God condemns a newspaperman to Hell in delirious defense of Guiteau. The song, too, takes a walk down the path of lunacy: “I’m going to the Lordy, I am so glad,/ I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad,/ I’m going to the Lordy,/ Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! I am going to the Lordy…” (177). That one doesn’t necessitate any explanation. With these documents, Vowell presents a compelling case for Guiteau’s insanity, identifying him as motivationally distinct from the other two assassins once and for

all.

Despite her attempts to humanize each assassin throughout Assassination Vacation, Vowell can’t help but paint Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President Garfield, as utterly insane, completely unique from Booth and Czolgosz, the other two assassins featured in the book. Her approach to Guiteau is different, for she not only spends more time on his backstory than on those of the other men, but her use of sarcasm is significantly increased. This is all justified throughout the course of the chapter and the book as she presents the political motivations of each assassin, and presents the lunatic requests, actions, and assertions of Guiteau that isolate him from his fellow murderers. Taking this distinct approach makes sense when looking at the facts, because Guiteau was unique among assassins, and this necessitated a unique approach in presentation.