Oscar The Outstanding Essay

the Platano Curtain, he acted like it was his very own plantation, acted like he

While many obstacles get in the way of friendship, true friendship still lives, even in silence. In the book, The Chosen , By Chaim Potok, two boys, Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders, who are very religiously different and both raised in completely opposite ways, develops a deep friendship. Their friendship opens up their worldview to many other different viewpoints in life. The friendship between these two boys is one with great religious significance, starting off with destiny and Gods will. As Danny and Reuven’s Friendship develops, it teaches them to respond wisely to the values of the more complex and secular world. It also teaches the true value of friendship. Because Danny’s father, Reb

Through completing my silver award alongside two other Girl Scouts (Hailey Lichey and Autumn Klein) from our Troop 5939, I have learned a great deal of what it takes to truly earn such an award as the Silver Award. Overall, my favorite part of working on our Silver Award was to see our book drive really start to come together and to really see that only three girls could make such a difference and actually be doing something to involve the community, including our school and the library. It really did make me feel like I could accomplish even more things such as this if given the task again. I now know through creating a book drive for our local Children’s hospital that there are a lot more children who go to either outpatient or inpatient

It is my profound pleasure to recommend Nakhim Seng for the C.C. “Jitter” Nolen Spirit Award. Nakhim is an intelligent and intrinsically motivated person. More importantly he feels no need to be the center of attention, but if he finds himself there he handles it like a seasoned veteran of the world. I am honored for the opportunity to have witnessed his strength of character as it has propelled him into adulthood. Put simply, Nakhim rises to every challenge he sets for himself and rarely needs anyone to raise the bar for him. He is truly a self-motivated, self-starter who loves to discover the mysteries of the world and who revels in their unraveling. To say it is a pleasure to write this nomination is an understatement.

The Caldecott Medal is named after Randolph Caldecott, a 19th century illustrator. The award is presented to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children and was first awarded in 1938 for a book called Animals of the Bible illustrated by Dorothy Lathrop. The award is given out once a year every year since 1938 with the most recent award recipient being Dan Santat for The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend. Originally there were no awards given out to the illustrators of children books, but once you look at the detail and story building illustrations in each of the award winning books, it is easy to see why they created the award to begin with. It is my belief that without such colorful and interesting

“FUKÚ” is an atavistic deadly curse that follows the De León family, and everything that can go wrong for them does. However, I believe that the fukú is only a consequence of their actions and a way for them to rationalize their misfortunes. The characters are using fukú as a crutch in place of taking responsibilities for their own actions. This is because they don’t want to accept the fact that things don’t always go the way they want them to. So they choose to blame the fukú for making their problems happen. So when fukú strikes a mongoose appears it comes as a character of a guardian angel with a sanguine presence. A mongoose is a weasel like animal that appears in the near death experiences of the characters. When it comes it shows a

As with playing the “What If” game (asking “what if” incessantly to explore each aspect of a situation), so did a chain of events occur that caused this relationship to form.

The ending of a novel can be evaluated by the reader in several different ways, however to properly analyze the work is to further explore the logic of how everything has come to be. The ability of the author to show the reader that the ending is reasonable from the preceding action and the character’s nature is what should truly be examined. Not only is the ending of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz both happy and unhappy, it is logical in the sense that it follows logically from the climax of the novel all while the character’s have been constant throughout, except Oscar. Oscar, the protagonist experiences a life-changing transformation that leads to his untimely death. However, the ending is convincing because of this

In Dominican culture, as portrayed by the novel, humans have very little control over their own lives. Instead, the opposing forces of fukú (curse) and zafa (counter spell) dictate the events in a person’s life. We see that in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the boundary between what is real and what is considered fantasy often melt together in order to heighten the power of the supernatural forces. As it is stated in introduction, the Dominican Republic is a magical space where the fantastic flourishes: “What more sci-fi than the Santo Domingo ? What more fantasy than the Antilles ? But now that I know how it all turns out, I have to ask, in turn : What more fukú ?” (6) The fictional elements of the fukú are symbolic of the horrors of the Trujillo rule. The Cabral family does

Diaz conveys how love can be complicated by creating failed relationships for Oscar, Beli, and Lola. Love is a big topic in the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. All characters go through their own situations about love and failed love. Love can really change a person; positively or negatively. People may not know when they have someone who is really down for them but ends up destroying their relationship just like some characters in the story.

Masculinity is defined as having qualities appropriate to or usually associated with a man, or have qualities traditionally ascribed to men, as strength and boldness (Dictionary). Masculinity can also be defined as simply just “a male person” (Merriam-Webster). From these definitions, it seems that anyone in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao who is a male, is considered masculine. Yet, masculinity is depicted completely different throughout the book. This novel introduces us to two very different Dominican male characters who are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the word masculinity. The Dominican male portrayed in this novel is driven by sex, power, and charm. The Dominican male also portrays masculinity, almost as if the two are interchangeable in this book. On one hand,

In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, the author presents the reader with recurring mysterious images and characters. In visual art, repetition of colors, shapes and textures is used to create unity, emphasis and rhythm. Because Diaz is painting his story with words he is using the literary device of repetition for the same reasons, for emphasis, to create a rhythm and to tie the account together. The narrative of Oscar and the Cabral and De Leon families and friends moves back and forth in time and the repetition of images with slight variations is a powerful way of maintaining and connecting the story line or theme in what may seem like a jumble of events. The “man with no face” and “paginas en blanco” , ‘blank pages’ or missing words are just a few of the recurring symbols used to connect past, present and further and to emphasize the predictable yet random feelings and consequences of 'Fuku'. By looking more closely at how and why these symbols were used, the major theme represented in the story of Oscar’s wonderful life, becomes apparent.

In a relatively recent human history, the first European immigrants inadvertently commenced a state of hybridity between peoples of different racial categories. In addition, the strained and chained dislodgment of millions of indigenous Africans by white hegemony immensely added to the current racial hybridity of the Americas. Junot Diaz’s novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao brilliantly illuminates the struggles of the immigrant as he tries to find a sense of belonging in a new environment whilst carrying a heavy, culturally inherited baggage that is part of an individual identity. In this particular case, Diaz applies the tyrannically darkened past of the Dominican Republic to address essential world issues implicating dictators, and their often invisible victims; superstations, and their often unexamined provenances. In the novel, The Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz uses his artistic and cultural lens as both Dominican and American; to subversively paint universal experiences relating to oppression, and superstitious beliefs.

From the first page, we know that Oscar was once a normal boy, who did normal Dominican things with his normal Dominican family. All the girls, “His sister Lola’s friends, his mother’s friends, even their neighbor, Mari Colon, a thirty-something postal employee who wore red on her lips and walked like she had a bell for an ass- all purportedly fell for him.” (Pg. 13) This shows that when he was young, he was quite the charmer. His youth was his golden age, as the book refers to it, which ended when he was seven. The beginning of the end was when he dated two girls at once. This ended with him getting his heart broken by a beautiful girl named Maritza and to Oscar, that is when his life turned for the worse.

"You must be quite confused my friend", said the man, "waking up in a strange room that is filled with strange people". I was unable to find my voice at the time so I answered him with a simple nod. "My granddaughter found you lying in a street not too far from here; you're quite luck that she did, otherwise you would have died there and then if it wasn't for her". My mind was slowly piecing together how I had collapsed in an ally and woken up in a house, but with the mystery solved I smiled and stretched out my hand to thank him for his help. "Thank you", I said with some effort and the old man smiled as I shook his hand. When I looked down at my status I saw that he had done a very good job of healing me, the state of my health bar had greatly improved and all of my other needs had been tended to as well. But as we talked I suddenly felt a sharp pain rip across my abdomen and I removed the bedsheets to see that my torso had been wrapped tight with bandages. At first I was more surprised than in pain, I began to question how it was even possible to be in this state after being supposedly healed. In fact the in-game pain filter should have