Summary Of The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz is a story about an overweight nerd from a New Jersey ghetto who is an aspiring writer and who dreams of finding love. Oscar’s journey to find love is plagued by the fukú, a Dominican curse believed to be placed on his family for generations. In the Dominican society, the ‘typical’ Dominican male is characterized as being sexually active, powerful and charming, and a woman’s value is largely based on her sexuality and appeal to men. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has two main female characters, Beli and Lola, whose youths are seized by their involvement in sexual activity with the opposite sex, and whose

INTRO The book “the brief wondrous life of oscar wao” is set through a multitude of different eras dating back to the 1940s. Commonly placed upon families. Most older generation dominicans believe heavily in the fuku as the time periods also dictates the belief.

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

He has already been beaten up and told not to see her again by her gangster boyfriend. However, this doesn’t stop the two from seeing each other even though Ybon tries to tell Oscar they shouldn’t speak. Oscar sister, Lola flew down to try and talk to him about not seeing Ybon anymore; however, this does not help. The author tells the readers that, “Lola flew down to see him, begged him to come home, told him that he was only going to get Ybon and himself killed,” (Diaz, 319) he listened to what she had to say but didn’t go home with her. Then his mother flew down and told him he had to come home he still refused; nothing was working and Oscar still kept seeing Ybon. It is said in the book that, “he tried again to kiss her and she turned away with her head, not her body. Please don’t. He’ll kill us.” (Diaz, 320), she tries to stop Oscar but it doesn’t help. Within the next couple of days Oscar is found yet again with the men who beat him up the first time. Only this time the author tells us that Oscar doesn’t cry on the way back to the cane fields. They take Oscar into the cane field and Clives, who was in the taxi, was tied up and left at the car. Oscar was not afraid this time and started to speak to the men. The only thing the author says about this beaten is Oscar tells the men how much he loves Ybon, “He told them about Ybon and the way he loved her and how

In Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the theme of love dictates the major downfalls Oscar goes through in the novel. After a very brief relationship with La Jablesse, La Jablesse ends the relationship between her and Oscar and Oscar goes through a distinct type of depression which Yunior has never seen before. Yunior believed Oscar would fall into the same cycle of depression as he did other times, however, Yunior states that “it wasn’t like always. I knew something was wrong when he stopped writing” which demonstrates how after so many years of searching for love, Oscar had finally reached a breaking point and reach a different level of hopelessness which forced him to stop writing

Not only does Oscar’s connection to the Dominican Republic’s standards affect his actions, but it also impacts his thoughts. Oscar grew up in a society where men were expected to have affairs with many women, and when he realizes that he is not a stereotypical Dominican “player,” his thoughts are negatively affected. The first occurrence is when Oscar becomes very depressed during his sophomore because a girl disses him. He continually obsesses about the idea of having a romantic relationship and when nothing arises, the condition worsens. The idea to end his life even arises during the course of college as Oscar walks out to the New Brunswick train bridge and jumps. Luckily, he lands on a garden divider, but the thought of ending his life is certainly present in Oscar’s mind. After college, Oscar’s thoughts continue to worsen as he cannot find love. He falls into a deep depression, can barely get out of bed in the morning, and holds a gun to his head. Once again these feelings are caused by Oscar’s relationship to the past in which he was told that Dominican men should be able to attract many women. Oscar was once successful as he had two girlfriends at the age of seven, and this relationship to a better past impacts his thoughts later in life. The most significant feeling that Oscar has in the novel is his love for Ybón, and this relationship portrays the meaning of the work very well. Oscar cannot stop thinking about this girl, but her capitán boyfriend sprays bullets into La Inca’s house. The capitán then proceeds to beating Oscar and has his henchmen knock Oscar out in a canefield. However, after this incident, his obsession worsens and he chases after Ybón. Finally, the capitán’s henchmen find Oscar and bring him back to the canefield where he is killed. Once again Oscar’s desire to replicate his earlier romantic years in

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 Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, he is telling the story of a Dominican family but mainly about the son, Oscar de Leon. The book opens with the story of Oscar as a child and him having two girlfriends at the same time. The older people in town see him as a ladies man and encourage him. The boy and the two girls all break up and his life seemed to be on a steady decline since then. He grows up to become a nerdy, fat, and awkward adolescence with few friends and even less interest from girls. This phase persists throughout his life and he never develops out of the nerdy boy he was as a child. The Dominican Republic was a hostile and poor place during the time of the novel. The dictator Trujillo controls the lives of the

In The Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao, the narrator mentions how Oscars school was perfect for him, “It was, for a fat sci-fi reading nerd like Oscar, a source of endless anguish” (19). After that the narrator mentions what oscar actually feels about the school,” For Oscar, high school was the equivalent of a medieval spectacle” (19). He felt lonely, fat, nerdy and bullied by everyone around him. He got rejected by all the girls he liked, his friends, but he never actually took the time to think about why they rejected him. He just felt depressed and started eating more and gained more weight. If he actually took the time to think about why he got rejected by others and fixed himself he would have gotten what he really wanted. That's when the book starts talking about their curse as if all what happened to Oscar was the Fukus fault not his own actions that led to what happened to

We can see by the title “Brief Wondrous Life” Oscar doesn’t make it very far into his adulthood before his tragic demise, however his life was nowhere near wondrous. As a Dominican male, he has expectations to become a “ladies man” or “macho”. Something that Oscar, seems to never find, but our narrator Yunior seems to know all too well. Oscars short life was spent trying to satisfy his family, friends, and ultimately himself, that he is valued as a good enough Domincan man.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao revolves its narrative around the sexual violence of women during Trujillo’s reign in the Dominican Republic. Despite name of the novel, Oscar is not the only central figure, as the novel also dive into the stories of each member of the de León family. Oscar’s mother, Beli, is a direct victim to the sexual political violence which, as Richardson states, is a “defining narrative of the female characters’ lives” throughout the text (Richardson, 2016, 26). Beli is a character who is defined via her dark skin and feminine body, both of which label her as an outsider within the Dominican Republic. She was victimised throughout her schooling years for her dark skin, however this changed as she reached puberty

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.

America always represents opportunity and freedom. Many people come here from different countries to look for works in order to achieve their dream or improve their financial condition. Nowadays, many young people come to America for receiving better education and career. People enjoy the multi-cultural environment and are willing to accept and learn different cultures. However, some social issues caused by cultural and racial difference still can be found in this modern society, which can trace back from the immigration movement in 1880s. The immigration culture began to form at that time and people were welcome to move to America because people found that it could improve the economy in America. However, after more and more people came to

Description of characters, in any story, goes well beyond their physical traits or personality. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is a novel in which each character possesses their own multifaceted culture. The various qualities that make up each unique character are brought to life through Diaz’ utilization of juxtaposition, diction, and tone throughout the literary work.

The only character in the book that did not try to teach Oscar and accepted him for who he is was his older sister Lola. In the book Lola never judges her brother, she loved her dorky, bibliophilic brother even though he was chubby and anti-social. She went as far to asking him to take all the money her mother had, so she and Oscar can run away together to have a better life. Oscar learns very little from anyone because he already has his own bubble build up that no one can get inside. However, the only thing that Oscar probably learned was how to love someone to then extend one is willing to die for them, he learned this from Olga. “These days I write a lot. From can’t see in the morning to can’t see at night. Learned that from Oscar. I’m a new man, you see, a new man, a new man.”(Diaz, 326). Oscar taught Yunior how to write and become a better man.