The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao Essay

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

Throughout the novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Oscar falls in love with several girls throughout his life whom never love him back. This is partially due to Oscar’s love for women that are extremely out of his league. These women are beautiful and desire the stereotypical man which is the opposite of overweight, nerdy Oscar. Several songs display the scenes throughout Oscar’s life in which he falls head over heels for women that would never publicly date him.

“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

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

After reading The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, I have determined that the theme is, being in love changes you. Oscar constantly thinks he is in love throughout the book. Oscar doesn’t find love in the places he is looking for it, among the random pretty girls he dreams about. He falls in love with a girl because of who she is, not what she looks like. It isn’t until he truly gets to know one girl, that he actually falls in love. Before Oscar was in love, he was very self-centered and detached from society. He would spent the majority of each day writing in his room. As Oscar fell in love, I could tell he was slowly changing, changing into a better version of himself. Oscar realized that he couldn’t stay in his

And couples of pages following the beginning, author describes how Oscar was handling two girls at the same time who were Maritza, Oscar’s sister’s friend, and Olga, who was no friend of family. Later comes the turning point for Oscar when “Maritza dumped him” (15) after he broke up with Olga. The guy who was a Casanova, trying to get girls around was now dumped and left alone. A situation where he was no used to it.

The conclusion of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is satisfying because the ending revolved around Oscar’s death, the separate stories of the novel now intertwined because of him. His transformation and new personality was ultimately the cause of his death, but in a sense it can be considered happy because it seems just right. Oscar becomes a new person and breaks free of his nerdy and rejected persona. Diaz seamlessly weaves the ending of Oscar Wao’s story and all the characters around him due to their natures and the preceding actions. The ending of this novel is convincing and logical because of Oscar’s new transformation which led him to do things which he would have not done before. These things that he did, most specifically pursuing a woman he should not have, led him to his death. Despite the morbid ending, it is not unreasonable; it is certainly logical and therefore satisfying to the

The Election and The Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao both had typical high school love drama both involving where the girl could not continue the relationship. With The Election one of the teacher’s had an affair with a student. The teacher fell in love with the student, but was very childish about it. Eventually, the student came to realize that this morally wrong and tried to stay away from him as much as possible. The relationship terminally ended when the mother of the student found out from a note the teacher had written on her test. In the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Oscar fell in love with Ana and tried his best to be there for her. However, what was preventing that relationship was his nerdy personality and that she was still in love with her ex-boyfriend Manny. Even after he changed his looks and confessed his love for her she still was not interested in him. The teacher and Oscar were going after girls who they knew weren’t a good suit for them. Even with the warning signs and

Oscar continued to teach at his old high school in New Jersey, sad and depressed everyday for three years, that is until his trip to Santo Domingo. Oscar forgot how much he had missed spending time in the Dominican. His mind was no longer filled to the brim with disappointment, stress and the feeling of being depressed. For the first time in a while, he saw beautiful

In the story, Oscar goes through difficult situations to want to interpret the role of the Dominican man. During the story, Oscar seeks a woman who gives him love and makes him feel like a man, but does not have the masculine qualities necessary to achieve his purpose. While his friend Yunior is the opposite, that is, his role in history is a man that women are always behind him by his charms, to the point that he cannot maintain a relationship with a woman because he cannot be faithful.

Lola was a punk girl trying to change her identity because she felt that she did not belong. Oscar and Lola did not fit in the patriarchal understanding of family because they did not had typical Dominican characteristics. Oscar was not a player, and he was not a strong the women on his family were stronger. Lola was stronger than Oscar was. When Oscar cried his mother hit him and his sister Lola made fun of him.

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

Although people sometimes want a person to change, meaning want them to change their identity or whom they are. Everyone should just accept themselves and be happy. In the beginning of the book Oscar talks in his perspective, then Lola’s and lastly to Yunior’s, they each mention the conflicts that they have to confront. Oscar faces many conflicts like his lack of ways with girls which don’t get him any, his depression and how he is fat and cannot have sex like Yunior. In Junot Diaz’s renowned novel, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, many characters try to teach and advise the main character, Oscar, of many topics. For instance, Yunior tries to teach him how to lose weight, attract women and behave in social situations but, Oscar doesn’t seem to care. Ultimately, Oscar chooses to not listen to the advice his family gives him but then he realizes it is for his own good. Diaz gives the message to his readers that the essential aspect of life is that a person should listen to their heart, and accept who they are as a person.

In the final chapter, the significance of the letter Oscar sends to Lola about his long awaited relations to Ybón prior to his death relates to the overarching theme of love in general while also relating to the sacrifice Oscar made next. Eight months after Oscar’s death, Lola receives a letter Oscar wrote her detailing that him and Ybón were able to have a weekend away together prior to his death. In this letter, Oscar wrote that him and Ybón engaged in sexual intercourse and he experienced the intimacies of being with someone he desperately craved for so long. Based on what occurred in the prior chapter, one infers that Oscar was unwilling to let go even though he finally got something he had been waiting years for. This leads him to staying

In reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, You can obviously notice Yunior the narrator is portrayed as a true Dominican male. It becomes evident that a large focus is put on both male and female roles and situations. Through these critical parts found all through this book, it winds up noticeably apparent that through the outrageous manly demeanor (machismo) is anticipated from men from the Dominican Republic, the ladies, thusly, are disrespected and unworthy are viewed as simply like a toy or object. Junot Diaz looks at his characters from a women point of view too, exploring the impact women have upon not only his life but also the men characters too. Through seeing how the Dominican culture impacts the characters in The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, it enables one to completely comprehend the thought processes and activities of the characters all through this book.