Oscar Wao as an Allegory for Caribbean Identity Throughout even a cursory study of Caribbean history, it becomes quite easy to determine that it is a history of many people who are consistently affected by immigration, serving to jumble life and status on the small rocks of land that dot the sea. Whether the result of European colonization, political upheaval, or diaspora, thus coming together of cultures serves as perhaps the most lasting and presently visible theme of Caribbean history. In Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the main protagonist serves as an allegory for this concept, using Oscar’s travails in-between two cultures, Dominican and American, to highlight the multiplicity of a lived experience derived from various identities. One of the most immediately noticeable characteristics about The Brief and Wondrous …show more content…
In many ways, the only culture that Oscar feels a part of throughout the bulk of the group is the nerdish pop culture to which he ascribes. According to Diaz, “”Dude wore his nerdiness like a Jedi wore his light saber or a Lensman her lens. Couldn’t have passed for Normal if he’d wanted to” (21). This was a far cry from the expected Dominican characteristics of machismo, athleticism, and charisma, all of which Oscar clearly did not possess—and potentially not even endeavor to attain. Oscar is a person trapped between multiple cultures. As he would reflect, “You really want to know what being an X-Man feels like? Just be a smart bookish boy of color in a contemporary U.S. ghetto. Mamma mia! Like having bat wings or a pair of tentacles growing out of your chest.” This perhaps fully highlights Oscar’s difficulty in navigating his past. He is constantly trying to establish a new identity for himself; however, he is constantly brought back to face the identities of his
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.
2. This passage from Junot Diaz’s Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao is significant because it initiates the growing tension between Oscar and his love for comic books. Oscar is fascinated by the idea of superheroes which developed his interest to write comic books. Oscar only had a wish to have a girlfriend, but the fact that Oscar’s love for comic books and sci-fi animes was not allowing him to have a girlfriend. These comic books and animes in a way distract him from seeing that what is happening in the world which makes him ill-informed about the world.
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,
In the Hispanic culture men are described as strong, unfaithful, and dominant in order to show their masculinity. However, the main character Oscar Wao masculinity was different from the norm. Oscar Wao was a nerdy kid who was fat and loved comic books and fantasy novels. All of his friends and family will bullied him about his lack of interest in girls,sports,and his body because it was against the stereotype of a real Dominican man. Oscar was expected to
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.
In The Brief Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, Diaz starts the book off by describing a curse that has plagued the DR since the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean. This curse which is known as the fuku americanus will, later on, become a major theme of the book, and will individually have its own effect of the protagonist, Oscar Wao, and anyone closely related to him. Oscar is this fairly young Dominican male who hasn't been very successful in his endeavors, especially the one in finding true love. But one can conclude that the cause for his lack of success is due to the fuku which scourges him and his relatives. As Diaz tells the story of how this curse, the fuku, effects him and his people, he is known to use a crude, extreme,
The brutal attack by Chris and Jason on Oscar represents this xenophobia. To the characters in Sweat, Oscar represents the Latino community, while the characters like Jason, Chris, Tracey, and Jessie represent many working class Americans who felt cheated out of their jobs. Because of the perceptions of Latinos as job stealers, or “scabs” as Oscar is referred to in the play (Nottage 79), by the characters in the play, they unleash their rage at losing their jobs in an attack on Oscar even though he had nothing to do with it. As David Román, a critic who saw the premier of Sweat at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, puts it, the attack begins as microaggressions before erupting into a “terrible display of white rage” (Mohler et al.). While this is an extreme case and most racism was and is likely most prevalent in the form of stereotypes and discrimination, the anger that is felt by the characters in this scene is representative of the hispanophobia felt by people in the real world during the 2010s and the attack is a symbol of the very real damage that hispanophobia and stereotypes have on the Latino
Junot Diaz develops the characters in The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in a unique way as he uses alludes to other books, comics, and movies in order to give the reader a sense of what kind of character is being incorporated into the book. In the passage above, Diaz establishes and develops a minor character for the sake of the situation at hand. Also, Diaz describes each character through the third person point view which follows Oscar Wao’s (main character) life closely. Through the use of third person point of view, the reader can get an idea of what other characters think about each other and predominantly, what the main character thinks.
The Curse of Oscar Daniel Plummer Charlestown High School Have you ever felt cursed in your life-like anything you do or say causes bad luck? Well, this is Oscar de León. He is the protagonist in the novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. Oscar de León is a Dominican-American man who grew up in Paterson New Jersey and is the son of Beli, the brother of Lola, and the most cursed one out of all his family members.
The role that gendered expectations plays in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao constructs detrimental limitations for males while reducing females to sexual beings. The prevalent Dominican males in the novel reinforce an absolute definition of masculinity characterized by dominance, attractiveness, manifestation of sexuality, and oppression of women. Such masculinity is constructed through every aspect that Rafael Trujillo, the ultimate Dominican male, embodies. Through the endorsement of expected Dominican hypermasculinity, females are overtly hypersexualized by means of objectification, while men are confined to fulfilling expected roles. In failing to embody Trujillo’s misogynistic, patriarchal ideal, males and females in the novel marginalize
The novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz focuses on the outside forces that occasion feelings of & the disparity between states of isolation. Isolation is the unmitigated dissociation from the rest of society, as was experienced by characters like Oscar & Belicia, whose existence functioned to epitomize the seclusion of a nation; the Dominican Republic. Aspects dealing with skin color, gender expectations & stereotypes assist in the connection as to why isolation exists not only in the novel, but also in the real world. Such elements have for long been utilized to label & reject different members of society, but like the difference of the characters in the novel, was the condition of isolation real or imagined? Examining the differences and
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao writer by Junot Diaz. This book was published in 2007, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and recognized for one of the best books of 2007. The story is about Oscar Wao personal life, including his sister Lola, mother Hypatia Belicia Cabral, Yunior de Las Casas and Abelard.
I chose this film because it showed how hard the union workers and families worked in fighting racial injustices, and because it inspired myself to move forward with strong ideologies and pride. 2. Stereotyping in mass media was an important concern of Chicana/o media activists because it imprinted a demeaning label by only casting Chicana/o actors with "minor roles: villains, sidekicks, temptresses, where their main function is to provide the protagonists, typically a handsome white
This film is a great image of how American pop culture was consumed in the early 90s. This film focuses on the relationship and interactions between three African American males