Written by Junot Díaz, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a novel set in both the Dominican Republic and the United States. The story relates the characters’ experience of being Dominican in both locations as well as the societal implications of living under the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina’s regime. These implications, namely perceived societal gender expectations, have great influence over the characters and fuel the oppression and violence that they experience during Trujillo’s dictatorship. Despite the social ostracism that Oscar Wao experiences throughout his life, due to his pertinacious determination and integrity in regard to his own interest and ideals, he eventually finds happiness by the end of the novel. The …show more content…
Díaz states, “[Oscar] [h]ad none of the Higher Powers of your typical Dominican male, couldn't have pulled a girl if his life depended on it. Couldn't play sports for shit, or dominoes, was beyond uncoordinated, threw a ball like a girl. Had no knack for music or business or dance, no hustle, no rap, no G. And most damning of all: no looks,” (Díaz Chapter 1). Oscar was also overweight and goofy looking. He did not enjoy sports or going to parties like many of his peers. Oscar’s interests included writing sci-fi and fantasy fiction and playing Dungeons and Dragons in the isolation of his house. Throughout the novel, sex is emphasized as an important factor of being a Dominican man: characterised as being attractive and charming as well as sexual and violent. Although in reality, Oscar is unimpressive and unattractive to most girls, he falls in love with girls and imagines romances with them in his head. His inability to conform to this stereotype is central within the novel, as he desires to have a woman return his affection. Even his sister, Lola, pushes oscar to be like the stereotypical Dominican male, warning him “you're going to die a virgin unless you start changing,” (Díaz Chapter 1). It is feared that Oscar will remain a virgin which seems to be considered taboo within his …show more content…
While a lack of machismo hindered Oscar from being considered a normal member of society, it is what allowed him achieve his goal of finding genuine love at the end of the novel. It becomes clear that the the expectation of “normality” at all creates a very clear societal dilemma. When it becomes a goal to be “normal,” what strays from the idealistic “norms” of society tends to be regarded with contempt. The seeking of “normalcy” inherently leads to the development of the idea of the “problem” or disability of those who fail to conform. People who stray from social “norms” are then considered disabled, but are traits such as compassion for others, the ability to love unconditionally, and the courage to maintain a sense of self in a society which aims to tear it from you really disabilities at all? In the words of Lennard Davis in the first page of Introduction: Normality, Power, and Culture, “The ‘problem’ is not the person with the disability, it is the way that normalcy is constructed to create the ‘problem’ of the disabled person,” (Davis 1). Everyone is different and to impose an idea of what is an expected or acceptable by labeling those who don’t conform as disadvantaged or handicapped, is artificial and
It is not until later in the chapter that the audience is made aware that the narrator was Lola. This shift in voice is undoubtedly a choice made by Díaz to cause confusion amongst his audience. In doing so, Díaz makes the reader think about how Lola’s perspective could give insight on the true protagonist, Oscar. As the chapter continues, the audience begins to see Lola’s own development as a child and how it deeply contrasted Oscar’s growth. She, unlike Oscar, is often under the critique of her own mother as she grew up.
There’s a direct relationship between the canefields and violence in the book, there had to be a reason for this. The canefields in the Dominican Republic was where the slaves worked when the Spanish colonizers came to the country, they were the cotton fields of the Dominican Republic. This is also when the fuku, or curse, was brought over the Dominican Republic from Europe as the narrator claims. ”It is believed that the arrival of Europeans on Hispaniola unleashed the fuku on the world, and we’ve all been in the shit ever since” (page 1). This must mean that canefields are part of the fuku the Europeans brought along.
In the Novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” in the first few pages we learn about fukú which is, “a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically, the Curse and the Doom of the New World” (1). Throughout the novel we learn that Oscar and his family believe that they have been cursed by fukú, but it is really a concept and a metaphor for the circumstances in which Oscar and his family have found themselves in. The first reasons is because of the Trujillo Dictatorship, and how growing up in the Dominican Republic during this time resulted in the progression of life for the family. The second Reason is that because Beli’s parents were killed, and caused Beli hardship throughout her life. It was a domino effect that was passed down to Oscar,
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
Often times, queer young adult literature highlights issues that plague adolescents without ever providing an account that feels authentic for its readers. Chulito by Charles Rice-Gonzalez is a gripping fictional account of what it means to be young, gay and Puerto Rican in New York City. Rice-Gonzalez is a lecturer at Hostos Community College and a longtime LGBT activist within the Bronx. Set in the South Bronx, Chulito explores a variety of themes, including masculinity, gayness, identity, and love. In this book, Rice Gonzalez highlights the importance seeing masculinity as being complex instead of dichotomous-
In the passage where Oscar wakes up in the middle of the night, he wakes up Yunior and asks him if there has ever been a Dominican male that has died a virgin and Yunior tells him that it is against the law of nature for that to occur. In this passage it says, “That, he sighed, is what worries me.” This reveals that Oscar is constantly thinking about not being able to have sex, even to the point to where he cannot sleep because of it. He is constantly being told how a “normal” guy his age should be and what he needs to change in order to be successful as a man. Moreover, Oscar mentions to Yunior that he was told that, it is unnatural for a Dominican man to die a virgin and this worries Oscar even more.
His family would make fun of him because he still had not lost his virginity, they would tell him at his age he should of had girls lined up. In the book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is said “Oscar, Lola warned repeatedly, you’re going to die a virgin unless you start changing” (Junot Diaz 25). He felt like a loser and felt like he wasn’t really Dominican because at that time he should have lost his virginity. He had trouble with it though because he had no friends and no girl was ever interest in
Yunior sits on the couch, palms sweaty. Waiting. He hears a car slow and he jumps up to peer out the window of his family’s apartment in the Terrace housing project. The car, a Ford sedan, stops and two men get out. Not her.
“He no longer went anywhere near the girls because at best they ignored him,” and some people call him “gordo asqueroso” which means “ugly fat” (Diaz 17). In that moment, Oscar stopped caring about himself as a typical Dominican, because nobody wanted to date him. He stopped being that “typical” Dominican that everyone on his family used to known. He turned in an insecure person because he stops to be a “Casanova” and has each girl as he wants. He does not care about what his family expects of him, but he is still cares about others opinion of him.
It is shocking to see how society oppresses, damages and even kills someone because he can be different to others, because he doesn’t follow the stereotypical line with everyone else. So what do I mean by a stereotypical line? I mean to see the same path along and along. Everyone is the same, no uniqueness found among society. For example, seeing a fat, nerd boy from the Dominican Republic.
The stories of Junot Diaz feature various elements of social and personal issues that are highly prevalent in young Latinx men, primarily the compulsion and adverse effect of machismo, the poignancy of being an outcast in one’s community, and the lack of a father figure in a boy’s life. The first set of short stories prominently feature Ysrael, a Dominican boy whose face was disfigured by a pig when he was an infant. In “Ysrael”, he is the object of Yunior’s fascination, and the victim or Rafa’s (Yunior’s brother) torment.
He just pushed past her, held up his hand when she tried to talk to him and headed right into the shower. Rafa gave me the look and I gave it back to him; we both knew Papi had been with that Puerto Rican woman he was seeing and wanted to wash off the evidence quick” (Diaz 23). This quote conveys the complications women face in the Dominican Republic but more ineptly, Drown. Extramarital affairs are not frowned upon because machismo lets men feel it is their right, in some cases their duty as men to receive pleasure from other women.
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.
“Look at that little macho, his mother’s friends said. Que hombre” (Page 14).He was taught to use his masculinity as a form of superiority “to be pulling in the bitches with both hands” (Díaz 2) As time passed by Oscar turned
Munoz’s story is interesting and different from the film we have been watching throughout the quarter, but it had a few things in common with the La Mission film and The Wedding Banquet all the gay men are dating a white man and their parents seem to blame the white man for the problems facing their sons. I wanted to read more but we only had so many pages from Munoz. In the story by Munoz the father doesn’t have a great relationship with his son, but they both want to make it work but they are scared to open more, their relationship is distant and estranged. The father imagines his son with a white women and a strong man who take charge of his life and can speak Spanish but the son is the opposite of this things, The father believes his son is being controlled by his partner whom he doesn’t like, because he is older, takes control of everything and he was to act as a father to his son life and that he doesn’t like and lastly the father loves his son and deep down he has faith that one day they will have a good relationship and finally understand each other.