Oscar's Flaws

He couldn’t stop obsessing over every pretty girl he saw. Eventually, it got him killed. His last obsession, Ybon, had an angry and jealous boyfriend who was an officer. Oscar did end up dead, beaten and shot by this man, in the middle of a field. He gave up

Oscar is the antithesis of his culture’s idea of manliness. In the beginning we meet an Oscar who is called “Porfirio Rubirosa” (21). Everyone is proud of the boy because this is exactly what he needs to be to be a Dominican man. Men from Dominican Republic, and perhaps Spanish Caribbean men, are expected to take care of their family especially their mothers and sisters, yet they are also expected to be “playboys” who have multiple women. as the first line of the story communicates, “Our hero was not one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about—he wasn’t no home-run hitter or a fly-bachetero, not a playboy with a million hots on his jock” (21). Oscar is the type of man who women say they want; kind, sensitive, considerate, smart, and romantic. He truly want to find true

Throughout The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, past events greatly affect Oscar’s present activities, attitudes, and values. Oscar Wao must continually contend with the thought of his breakup with Maritza Chacón as a seven year old, and this specific event contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Oscar’s breakup marks a transition in his life from being a stereotypical Dominican “player” to an overweight nerd. During his high school years and beyond, he continually searches for love. However, the search for love and urge to replicate his earlier romantic years ultimately result in his death because love acts as a curse throughout the novel. Oscar’s relationship to his childhood years heavily influence his activities and thoughts

Dohra Ahmad, the author of the Wondrous life of Oscar Wao book, provides the book setting in the united states and the Dominican republic. In particular, the author analyses the harsh regime power ruled by Trujillo which exposes people to hostility and violence. As a result, various characters within the book flee from their country into America. The author has used an authoritative tone to reflect on Trojan’s leadership. There is a degree of sarcasm and contempt in Ahmad voice especially when he indicates that despite his strict leadership and dictatorship, most people in Dominican Republic remained poor (Díaz,3).

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is not a happy book. The Author, Junot Diaz, does a great job fooling the reader into believing the story is about the De Leon family, specifically Oscar who is an over weight 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. Instead, the story actually portrays the dark history of the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Upon reading the stories of Oscar’s relatives the reader feels a powerful message of fear and oppression due to the actions of the Trujillo regime. Even after the demise of

While at Rutgers, Oscar thought he had something going with a girl named Jenni Muñuz. They became pretty good friends, getting into deep conversations and telling each other secrets. Oscar only imagined the relationship developing into Jenni becoming his girlfriend. The Fuku had to be getting the best of Oscar at this point, as Jenni found another guy that she made her boyfriend. Again, Oscar was more than crushed. His heart had cracked into a million pieces, glued back together and the shattered again. Oscar was in such bad shape after Jenni found a boyfriend that he decided to commit suicide. Luckily for Oscar, he survived his jump from the bridge as he landed safely on the median. Oscar makes it through college and finds a nice job teaching at his old high school in New Jersey. It is not until a much needed trip to the Dominican Republic where his attitude starts to change.

When we see that the people that we love have to deal with a horrible situation we try to make it better anyway we can, sometimes giving up the most important part of ourselves. In The Brief Life of Oscar Wao, Diaz argues that there are stronger forces around us. With fuku, the curse in the Dominican Republic, is present in the lives of Oscar and Beli when they both have an encounter with the

Being abused as a child and nobody wanting her because of her skin color and loosing her parents and siblings in murder, and yet she didn’t do anything to deserve this. As teen years met Belicia she gained the privilege to make decisions for her self. Until then she suffers the fukú from her own actions. Moving through the generation fukú strikes Belicia’s son Oscar after he made the decision to break one girl’s heart because he was dating two girls contemporaneously. In return he got his heart broken by the girl he chose to stay with and then everything went downhill for Oscar. Gaining weight, and casting every one away Oscar lost his popularity and became a pathetic nobody with suicidal thoughts. "Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkein and, most of all, of finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the....curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, following them on their epic journey from the Dominican Republic to the United States and back again."

““Fuku americanus” Diaz explains, is "generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World." It seems especially contagious and deadly in the Dominican Republic, where "it is believed that the arrival of Europeans on Hispaniola unleashed the Fukú on the world.”” (Review: It’s a Wonderful Life 4). Fukú is shown through the many horrific events that are shown throughout. Trujillo is believed to be able to put the curse on whoever he chooses for many generations to follow. In the news article Fukú Americanus, Deresiewicz states,

Oscar’s end was met after he had decided to meet with a girl, named Ybon, who claimed she was single. To his surprise, she was not. Her boyfriend turned to be someone called the Capitán, who is affiliated with the corrupt government, and this meant that Oscar was to get a beating by the Capitán’s henchmen. At this moment it is described when the narrator illustrates, “Grod and Grundy yanked him out of the car. And did Ybon fight to keep him in her arms? Did she protest the rude interruption to their making out? Of course not. Homegirl just passed right out again” (Diaz 294). Oscar is on his own because Ybon is unable to help him. Oscar was left to experience this form of both horizontal and vertical violence. The horizontal coming from the Capitán’s henchmen, and the vertical being the Capitán using his power to harm Oscar. This beating did not kill Oscar, but would lead up to his death. Oscar ultimately met up with the Capitán’s men again. Right before he is shot, one of the men says, “Listen we’ll let you go if you tell us what fuego means in English” (Diaz 322). Oscar blurts out the answer, “fire”, and he is gone. The beating and his death, were all fuku. The curse followed him when everything seemed to be going good for him. The “wondrous” moments of his life were too short, and overpowered by the

Unfortunately, our hero lacked in physical attractiveness as well. It was stated on page 22 of the book, “sophomore year Oscar found himself weighing in at a whopping 245” (Diaz) this obesity drives him even further away from the expectations of the society, making it even more difficult for our hero to fit in. Furthermore, to be a real man in Dominican society a male has to depict an aggressive and rough attitude. Diaz makes the character of Oscar lack even this attribute of Dominican masculinity. It is mentioned on page 19, “It wasn’t just that he didn’t have no kind of father to show him the masculine ropes, he simply lacked all aggressive and martial tendencies… Oscar had like a zero combat rating; Aggression and intimidation out of the question.” The above lines show that our hero was not treading the path of nonconformity as a matter of choice; he was simply incapable of following the gender specific requirement of the Dominican

Díaz writes about Oscar leaving his friends to show his maturity for being able to cut ties with people, especially since it is hard for him to make friends.

Oscar is not the typical Dominican man that his family expects him to be. He is considered to be a nerd which leads to the lack of romance in his adolescence and adulthood. In an article by Joori Joyce Lee it says: “Growing up as a ghetto nerd, or "a smart kid in a poor-ass community," Diaz felt like a mutant because he found himself to be an outsider in both the Dominican subculture and mainstream white American society.” (Lee, pg 23). Oscar could never really fit in with his peers or even with Dominicans, he is always considered an outsider to them. “Everybody noticed his lack of game and because they were Dominican everybody talked about it.” (Diaz, pg. 24). His own family recognizes his lack of masculinity that a Dominican man should have. Even Oscar’s sister Lola encourages him to lose weight and to become more masculine in order to get a girlfriend. His uncle Rudolfo is a prime example of what society expects every

The decision to go against conformity is the only way to escape the situation that one is in, as shown in Díaz’s novel and Malala’s journey. Oscar, the main protagonist of Díaz’s novel, is frequently told by the people around him who he is and who he must be, sparking a deep conflict within Oscar. “Our hero was not one of those Dominican cat’s everybody’s always going on about ... dude never had much luck with the females (how very un-Dominican of him)” (Díaz, 11). From the beginning of the book, Oscar is pinned as an unfavorable choice for women. He notices this when girls reject him for the way he looks and his family members critique his lack of “improvement”. The Dominican expectation tells men they should be charming and a lothario however Oscar is neither. Oscar has the decision to conform to or reject the expectations. As it is more difficult to push the expectations away, Oscar spends his life chasing women in hopes of sex, which is also

Everything begins when Oscar at the age of seven his mother finds him crying for a girl and his mother tells him to be respected by women, before this event Oscar was seen in the community as a small playboy Dominican Rubirosa, he has a relationship with two girls at the same time for a week, a week before the girls ask him to have to choose which of the two is going to stay and then the two left him.it can be said that from that moment everything began.