Short Summary : Fuk?? As A Deadly Curse

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

“Fuku—generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World,” written in the Pulitzer Prize winning novel—The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which is written by Junot Diaz (Diaz 1). If you make a bad choice, you will receive “fuku,” says Junot Diaz in the interview on Q TV (YouTube). In the interview with Slate Magazine, Diaz says that the novel “is all about the dangers of dictatorship” (Rourke 3). It describes how Oscar’s family’s three generations have been affected by the dictatorship of Trujillo who was the president of Dominican Republic and different other dictatorships by Yunior’s narration.

Oscar Grant III is depicted as a real human being who struggles daily to become a better person in a world that has already proven to be injustice to him. He was a great father, loving son, loved his girlfriend but struggled with infidelity, and was a convicted felon. The movie

In college Oscar lives with the narrator of the novel, Yunior. Yunior describes the obsession Oscar has over a Puerto Rican goth girl that was out of his league. Her name was Jenni Muñoz and she lived in the same building as him. Oscar thought he was in love with her after the first time they had ever talked. This is a prime example of how easily Oscar falls in love with girls out of his league. He can have one conversation with a girl and think they are meant to be together. Yunior watches Oscar and Jenni get close and hangout with each other until the day when he comes home to Oscar crying in his bed. Yunior tried to see what had happened, but Oscar got angry and wanted to be left alone. This heartbreak was one of the worst Yunior had seen Oscar have: “Figured it would be like always. A week of mooning and then back to the writing. The thing that carried him. But it wasn’t like always”(Díaz 186). Usually when Oscar was rejected by

Diaz strategically uses Yunior to narrate a majority of the novel. Though Yunior’s identity as the narrrater was not revealed till almost the very end of the novel, Yunior gave a very descriptive and satirical version of the life of Oscar Wao. Yunior was Oscar’s roommate at Rutgers, the boyfriend of Oscar’s sister, Lola, and the reader

“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

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

Trouble began to brew because of the woman, and it seemed logical to any normal person to discontinue the pursuit; but Oscar’s stubbornness that was frequently depicted in situations throughout the novel led him to his death. In this novel there was no other way for Oscar to die logically; he needed a big bang to bow out of his eccentric life and what better way for him, than to die for love. True love, what Oscar had been searching for his entire life and finally found, had killed him.

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.

Although passion and love have a strong influence on Oscar's personality, he is not able to get a girl and this deepens his depression and weight problem. He is the exact opposite of the macho standardized figure.

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.

Oscar, who was a Dominican man, did not fit the stereotype of a Dominican man. He "couldn't play sports," did not know how to fight, and enjoyed reading science fiction and comic books (Diaz 20). Moreover, Oscar was also not particularly attractive and overweight. Unfortunately for Oscar, Dominican men were "supposed to have Atomic Level G", to "be pulling in bitches with both hands, and be athletic and muscular" (24). Furthermore, they were expected to be extremely macho and exude confidence. It was not Oscar's fault that he lacked some of these characteristics because he "didn't have no kind of father to show him the masculine ropes (15). As a result, he did not have much luck with the ladies and, "everybody noticed his lack of game", criticizing him (24). This illustrates how this stereotype and gender role was widely accepted and how those who defied it were alienated. Thus, life was extremely difficult for Oscar, who struggled with many problems throughout his life because he was not the typical Dominican

““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 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

In popular culture and mainstream media, women are often portrayed as overtly sexual objects that are obligated to entertain the idea of patriarchy. The strong outward appearances and characteristics of women in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz are deceiving, as they do not reveal their powerlessness against men. Throughout the entire book, women are described and seen as sexual objects through the eyes of Yunior, Oscar, and various other men. In the first chapter, Oscar and his peers treat women like they are disposable, despite their desire and need for them. This negative trend is reinforced in the next two chapters, as the narrators shamelessly describe women by emphasizing their feminine traits whilst simultaneously displaying the idea of male dominance. In addition, strong-willed women like Beli and Lola refuse to succumb to such lustful treatment, but when they are tempted with the fantasy of true love, they immediately lose their strength and surrender. In the last few chapters, these ideas are further reinforced through the sexual desire that Oscar possesses. He meets Ybon, a prostitute with a boyfriend, and immediately falls in love. Ybon is committed to her boyfriend, but because of the way she is seen in a patriarchal system, she gives in to the forbidden love that Oscar offers. No matter how strong these women were within the story, they always let the men have their way. In the end, Oscar dies because of his uncontrollable desire for love. The