Oscar Wao Allusion

In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, language, narration structure, and use of allusions can be either helpful or hindering in the telling of the story. For this reader, they were extremely helpful. The language technique and use of allusions helped immerse the reader into the story and give helpful insight into the psyches of certain characters. The narration structure allows the reader to better understand the Cabral family fukú and its origin.

Yuniors use of crude language helps give the reader insight into his psyche and perspective on the life of the Cabral family. When Yunior says, “All you need to know is that if we talked once a week we were lucky, even though we were nominally boyfriend and girlfriend. All my fault,

Yunior says, “In these pursuits alone Oscar showed the genius his grandmother insisted was part of the family patrimony. Could write in Elvish, could speak Chakobsa, could differentiate between a Slan, a Dorsai, and a Lensman in acute detail, knew more about the Marvel Universe than Stan Lee, and was a role-playing fanatic...Perhaps if like me he’d been able to hide his otakuness maybe shit would have been easier for him, but he couldn’t...Couldn’t have passed for Normal if he’d wanted to”(21). These allusions really show the kind of person Oscar truly was, first of all he was insanely smart. Secondly, he was completely and utterly himself. He was nerdy, and he wrote, but ultimately that persistence to be himself is what made him Oscar. This also helps the reader see that maybe Yunior wasn’t the perfect example of a Dominican man in his heart, although he was brought up to be that way and acts like he is. He said he hid his “otakuness”...and basically thought Oscar should have tried too. This shows the reader a part of Yunior we don’t often see, he exposes himself for being like Oscar in some ways. But when he rooms with Oscar he bonds with him over his geekiness, and is his true self around him. The allusions to these games, books, shows, and fantasy worlds were a part of Oscars personality, and a part of Yuniors. In this way

For example the book starts off with, “They say it first came from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles. Fukú americanus, or more colloquially, fukú—generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World”(1). This explains to us what the fukú really means, and the chapter also explains the Zafa. Beginning with this really gives the reader the initial background of a main theme, and then further develops it throughout the story. After the reader learns that initial lesson about fukú, they learn about the lives of Oscar, Lola, Belí, and Yunior. Then, the structure brings the reader back to the origin of the specific fukú around the Cabral family. When Yunior began the chapter on Abelard from 1944-1946, he started with, “When the family talks about it all-- which is like never-- they always begin in the same place: with Abelard and the Bad Thing he said about Trujillo”(211). By learning about Oscar and his present day family first, the structure of the story creates an effective way for the reader to understand the fukú by digging into its origin in the Cabral family after. By going back to Abelard’s