The Dominican Republic during the Trujillo Regime in the 20th century was an extremely tough experience for citizens and residents in the island. There was recurring acts of torture, violence, arrests and murders that were occuring all thoughout the country while dictator Rafael Trujillo was in power. His main targets were those of Haitian descent and people who had African phenotypes which led to the development of colorist and racist roots in the upbringing of the country. During his dictatorship, approximately 20,000 people, mainly Haitians, were murdered in 1937 under his command which later became known as the Parsley Massacre. Through Junot Diaz’s work, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,we get insight into a family’s life and struggles …show more content…
Once Oscar graduates from college, he gets a job at his previous high school, which he later decides for the first time in years to join his family by visiting La Inca back in Santo Domingo (Diaz 263). While on his trip, he meets this woman, Ybon, in which he deeply falls in love with her but he quickly learns that she has another partner (Diaz 281). Ybon reveals that she is now married and encourages Oscar to leave before her husband finds out, but he is too late. Oscar is sent out to the field and gets beaten close to death, which leads him to having déjà vu as his mother was in this exact situation as him. Time passes and Oscar returns to the states but is eager to return to the Dominican so he asks Yunior for “rent” money but then uses it to buy a flight to visit Ybon (Diaz 289). Oscar struggled with rejection very difficult all throughout his life which led him to having a hard time trying to move on from all of his crushes. While in Santo Domingo, Oscar comes across the Capitan and sees the same symbols his mother once saw, the faceless man and the golden mongoose, which foreshadows a tragic event which becomes his death (Diaz 297). The repetition of history through the mother and son portray the chokehold and influence Trujillo had over the Dominican Republic at the time. Through the countless, silent tortures and murders he would commit that would cause the country to remain silent in fear of what he was capable of doing. While the De Leon family would spend their time in the Dominican, no one had the guts and confidence to confront the constant corruption Trujillo enabled to happen and all his wrongdoings leading them all to absolutely
The scene described on pages 143-152 of Junot Diaz’s The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a horrific one, yet it is essential to the novel due to its power and its effective use of language. In the pages listed, there is are descriptions of La Inca praying for Belicia and the two Elvises beating Belicia to near death. La Inca is able to gather many people together to unite in prayer in hopes of saving Belicia. Even those who were not supportive of her decisions and those who considered her to be a whore.
Published in 2007, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz is about an unconvincing protagonist named Oscar de León. Even though Oscar is supposedly the main character of the novel, Díaz made a very clear choice of giving other characters the spotlight to change how the book should be read by his audience. Rather than having a clear start to finish plot of Oscar Wao, Díaz chose to weave in the stories of other characters throughout the novel to give his audience a better picture and understanding of Oscar as a person. Oscar’s lack of presence may be daunting to some readers as they attempt to figure out his purpose within the book. The choice that Díaz makes when writing this novel, ultimately paints Oscar de León as the protagonist
When Oscar is struggling to appear masculine, Yunior looks better in comparison. Yunior explains how “after the suicide drama nobody in Demarest wanted to room with [Oscar]... Me, a guy who could bench 340 pounds… put in my application for the writing section and by the beginning of September, there we were, me and Oscar. Together.” (169-70) Yunior had used Oscar to look heroic.
Trujillo was a vicious ruler who had his men kill, rape, and take whatever he wanted. The main character of the story was Oscar Wao, an overweight, nerdy, Dominican virgin who struggles desperately to find a girl who likes him. Oscar grew up in New Jersey and went to
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao written by Junot Diaz is a novel based on the history of the Dominican Republic. On this book we observed how is important in most of the families being as family legacy which every member of the family have to be or do that their family request. In the Dominican Republic one of the most typical themes are being the typically Dominican male, that means that they have to be a Casanova and for the Dominican female they have to be a good girl without problems. For some Dominicans who believes in supernatural things exist a curse named “Fukú” which is a curse that a whole Dominican family could have and it could pass thru generation in generation. The only way to get rid of the curse is saying the word known
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the mother of the titular character has a troubled backstory. In the late 1950’s in the Dominican Republic, Hypatia Belicia Cabral falls in love with a mysterious man known as the Gangster. Unbeknownst to Belicia, the Gangster has ties to Trujillo, the ruthless dictator of the Dominican. The Gangster is married to Trujillo’s sister, who is not happy with the
Violence in Fiction The use of violence in fiction is beneficial, as well as purposeful in building and sustaining the author’s main point of the novel. In the article “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” Thomas C. Foster states “[Violence and tragedy are] accidents only on the inside of the novel - on the outside they’re planned, plotted, and executed by somebody, with malice aforethought.” Accidents and tragedy in novels are purposely planned to keep the story moving along, but also to push the character(s) to reach a realization of the bigger picture, and the author’s intended purpose. In The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz includes much violence in his story, whether verbal, or like on page 146, physical.
From the very first pages of the novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Díaz, the readers are deliberately shown an overview of fuku, a bad curse. It has caused many tragic consequences to Cabrals family; especially to Oscar. He is the main character of the story who is an overweight nerd trying to find the love of his life, but due to a family “fuku” or curse Oscar is having a lot of trouble doing so. In addition, the story actually portrait the darkness time of Cabral's family under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo’s regime. As Diaz mentions that “anyone who plotted against Trujillo would incur a fuku most powerful, down to the seventh generation and beyond”(3), Oscar’s family always unfortunately face tremendous situations
Throughout Dìaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, readers visualize Oscar’s self-reflection through his physical characteristics. As a young boy, he had confidence and was “a “normal” Dominican boy raised in a “typical” Dominican family, his nascent pimp-liness was encouraged by blood and friends alike” (Díaz 11). However, as he got older, he did not keep his “normal” Dominican appearance of dark skin and “semi-kink hair in a Puerto Rican afro” (Díaz 20). In fact, he began to develop much like the majority of American children today; Oscar began obese.
Most of the characters in Diaz's novel, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, are entangled in two different realities, not just physically but emotionally; the author plays with Magical Realism by combining the very historical and realistic with the wondrous during the course of his novel. Diaz continuously alludes to the idea of Genre in general, and incorporates magical attributes into texts from several ones (genres) while synthesizing it with his national traditions. Junot takes his main character, Oscar, and makes him to be one very into science fiction thus, blending United States' pop culture to his Latin characters in a primarily Dominican narrative, by combining these he highlights the conflicts in the story and links the
Oscar is a kind-hearted and intelligent man, but no one wants to talk or be friends with him. Reason being, the curse of the fuku that has been inherited by his family from his grandparents, has negatively impacted his social life as well as, his overall lifestyle as a young man. Many believe that the fuku is the
As was previously stated, "The Structure of Torture" presents the idea that as a person experiences torture, they will completely lose the ability to recognize any sense or emotion, other than pain. Another character in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao challenges Elaine Scarry's contention as Oscar never lost his desire to love whilst experiencing torture in the cane fields. Before Oscar is shot and killed, he tells the two men that by killing him, they "were going to take a great love out of the world." He subsequently begins to explain his strong love for Ybon and how neither the men, nor their children will feel anything when they shoot and kill him. He then begins to explain how he will be waiting on the "otherside," ready to take revenge
Many of Oscar’s family members had direct contact with Trujillo or his organization. Abelard’s wife and daughter’s mysterious deaths may have been caused by the government; this is an unanswered question in the book. Oscar had contact with a government official, Ybón’s boyfriend, which led to his death. The wall or curse hangs over Oscar’s family. In Oscar’s final words to his murders, Oscar tells them he will be waiting for them when they die on the other side which could be a reference to the wall and his final escape (Diaz
He is brought there by two police, but while they are attacking him, “Oscar was sure that he was being beaten by three men, not two, that the faceless man from in front of the colmado was joining them” (299). The third person is hidden from everyone there and symbolizes loss of identity as he attacks Oscar. Being a “faceless man,” he has no distinct features and is just another asset that the police use. Since Oscar did not know that there was a third person there, he symbolizes the hidden truths of the regime. Everything in the regime is hidden, so no one knows the truth about what happens.
The main character Oscar and every male in the novel The Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz had sexism implemented in them at a young age by their family and culture, damaging them and women permanently, hurting their egos and potential relationships. Oscar and the men in the novel were portrayed as players or longing to be. Oscar was a little player himself at the beginning of the story. He continuously flirted with girls and was encouraged to have several girlfriends.