The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. Narrated by multiple characters, the novel incorporates a significant amount of Spanglish and neologisms, as well as references to fantasy and science fiction books and films. She is horrified at first but softens and eventually has sex with Oscar. The narration of the book also shifts away from Yunior to another character at several key moments in the story. "[47] Díaz hints at possible latent abilities or qualities Oscar may possess that will reveal themselves or develop later in the novel. All of these tragedies as a result of the desire for a beautiful young lady, a by product of the preeminence given to physical appearance. Our, “Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao Symbols & Motifs The Mongoose and the Man Without a Face In many cultures, the mongoose is a symbol of good fortune. When he examines his own body in the mirror he feels "straight out of a Daniel Clowes book. Díaz creates a distinct link between human beings' performative nature and the masks required to express it, and the masks worn by superheroes. Trujillo's appetite for ass was "insatiable" (217), pushing him to do unspeakable things. By actively disparaging the brutal dictator, Diaz breaks social and cultural norms about how common people function in a power hierarchy. Don't be alarmed, dear readers; as the Domincan Republic's most feared dictator, Mr. Trujillo hovers over the entire novel. [54] The book won the John Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize,[55] the Dayton Peace Prize in Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008. As Trujillo never attempts to sleep with Jackie, the narrator and reader are left to wonder if at some level the motivation for this family ruin has to do with silencing a powerful voice. Trujillo is one scary dude. Kind of like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. The third daughter, Beli, is sold as a maid to cover family debts. Find a summary of this and each chapter of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao! The story is narrated through the eyes of Yunior, his college roommate. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao went on to win numerous awards in 2008, such as the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[2]. "[52] One of Díaz's frequent references to J. R. R. Tolkien comes when he describes Trujillo: "Homeboy dominated Santo Domingo like it was his very own private Mordor. Chapter Summary for Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, part 1 chapter 2 summary. The phrase originated in the Frank Herbert novel Dune and Oscar uses it to try and quell his own fear near the end of the story, to no avail. Although in the story her character does not know her own role, she must accept and embrace her Dominican culture to break the curse. Oscar de Leon, in The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, is a tragic hero because he is naturally virtuous, possesses tragic flaws, and is faced with undeserved misfortune. In Oscar Wao, it initially appears that the mongoose will serve a similar symbolic purpose. [62] Director Walter Salles and writer Jose Rivera (The Motorcycle Diaries) were hired by Rudin to adapt the novel. His great fear is that he will die a virgin. "But what was even more ironic was that Abelard had a reputation for being able to keep his head down during the worst of the regime's madness—for unseeing, as it were. He is constantly deemed not masculine enough by those around him, and he does not follow the norms of his Dominican culture. His sister's boyfriend Yunior (the narrator of much of the novel) moves in with Oscar and tries to help him get in shape and become more "normal". When Oscar meets Ana, one of the many women with whom he falls in love, he notices different aspects of her life and "there was something in the seamlessness with which she switched between these aspects that convinced him that both were masks". The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao contains several of the hallmarks of Latin American Magical Realism. Please be aware that this discussion guide may contain spoilers! The re/appearances of canefields in Oscar Wao are symbolic. He writes letters back to the States, but no one can persuade him to give up his obsession with Ybón. This article focuses a feminist lens of criticism on the characters and their actions in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.Specifically, through the examination of this text in the feminist criticism, the author presents the idea that the masculinity of the Dominican men in the novel actually helps to shape strong, "no-nonsense, domineering women" (Heck, 2009, 1). "[45] Díaz has said that this question can be read as being directed at the reader, "because in some ways, depending on how you answer that question, it really decides whether you're Galactus or not. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Within hours of El Jefe dancing bien pegao with those twenty-seven bullets, his minions ran amok−fulfilling, as it were, his last will and vengeance. Contemporary masculinity and contemporary power structures leave no room for vulnerability, but for Díaz, "the only way to encounter a human is by being vulnerable. Canefields are where enslaved Africans were forced into labor and dehumanization. "[49] Oscar's vast memory of comic books and Fantasy/Science-fiction is recalled whenever he is involved in the text, and his identity is multiform, composed of scraps of comic book marginalia. After (unknowingly) becoming involved with Trujillo's sister's husband, The Gangster's men assault Beli there. [31] Because of the way that the story is narrated, the readers get a comprehensive view of the cultural factors that surround Oscar that ultimately lead to his tragic death. Lola marries a Cuban man and moves to Miami. Beli lives with her aunt, La Inca, in Baní, a fairly poor neighborhood of Santo Domingo. Yunior provides analysis and commentary for the events he is relaying in the novel. Speculative fiction is a sub-category of fiction that deals with ideas that are not directly real, but rather imaginative or futuristic. It also differentiates race and gender in the Dominican Republic. The basis of all of the problems that arise in this novel is the US-sponsored dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo that lasted for over thirty years. One section is a first person narrative from the perspective of Oscar's sister, Lola, explaining her struggles to get along with their headstrong mother, Beli. Díaz has said that to dismiss the novel's reflexivity with fiction and fantasy is to do to the novel "exactly what Oscar suffered from, which is that...Oscar's interests, his views of the world, were dismissed as illegitimate, as unimportant, as make-believe",[44] and that the novel asks the reader "to take not only Oscar seriously but his interests seriously. Chapter One (paperback pages 11 - 50) for "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" If you can help improve this in any way, please drop me an email (in English) and I'd be happy to change it - this is just what I was able to cobble together. Like the de Leon family, the mongoose is an immigrant, an invasive, non-native species. He is a socially awkward Dominican American in a bid to assert his identity and find love. Rather than return to teaching high school, Oscar asks Yunior for money. The novel’s plot is intricately bound up with the notion of Fukú Americanus, which is “generally a curse of doom of some kind; specifically, the Curse or Doom of the New World”. Meanwhile, Abelard’s wife gives birth to their third daughter but commits suicide soon after. The book shares the story of Oscar Wao (whose real name is Oscar de León), a Dominican American who never fits in with his communities, as he tries to assert his own identity and find love in the process. Eventually, he moves to the Dominican Republic and falls helplessly in love with Ybon, a sex worker who lives near him. Also, Díaz references Stephen King on a number of occasions, including a reference to Captain Trips, the fictional virus that wipes out mankind in The Stand, as well as two references to its characters, Harold Lauder, compared to Oscar, and to Mother Abigail, compared to La Inca. (including. She symbolizes the Dominican identity struggle of growing up with two cultural ties, that of the Dominican Republic and that of the United States. Díaz also hints at the novels Magical Realist elements by claiming that Fúku was popular in places like Macondo,[26] which is the fictional setting for One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which is seen as one of the most prominent Latin American Magical Realist novels. She had to choose whether or not to take advantage of her new curvaceous body which puberty had generously bestowed upon her. The scenes of physical violence against Beli and Oscar are set in this specific, geographical space of the sugar canefields. The idea that an individual has the power the change the effects of the curse in their own life is a way for the novel to show that Dominican culture can be changed in a way that marginalized people can have power. She gets back in touch with Oscar, planning to meet him at a café, but their mother catches her there. In having this character take on such a surreal nature with characteristics not found in most mongooses, such as the ability to talk and vanishing in the blink of an eye, Díaz establishes an uncertainty that mirrors the controversies over whether superstitions exist. Yunior gives it to him as a peace offering to Lola, with whom he is fighting again, but does not know that Oscar will use it to go back to Ybón. Lola’s strained relationship with her mother causes her to act out. [29] This sense of uncertainty towards this fantastical curse allows the novel to speculate as to how it can be broken. "In my first draft, Samaná was actually Jarabacoa, but then my girl Leonie, resident expert in all things Domo, pointed out that there are no beaches in Jarabacoa. Yunior thus builds a context for the Dominican history, where the characters are used just as much in the footnotes as they are in the body of the novel. Both political critique and metafiction are typical features of Magical Realism.[24][25]. Rife with footnotes, science fiction and fantasy references, comic book analogies, and various Spanish dialects, the novel is also a meditation on story-telling, the Dominican diaspora and identity, sexuality, and oppression. Many of the footnotes ultimately connect back to themes of coming to a new world (underscored through the novel's references to fantasy and sci-fi) or having one's own world completely changed. Even a woman as potent as La Inca, who with the elvish ring of her will had forged within Banί her own personal Lothlόrien, knew that she could not protect the girl against a direct assault from the Eye. This novel examines some of the most trying and important aspects of the lifestyles of those of Dominican descent. Diaz ties in Lola’s daughters character with breaking the curse to show that the future of Dominican culture is to be defined by aspects others that a history of oppression and colonization. [63] According to Díaz, Miramax's rights on the book have since expired. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and societal views on finding love. In 1937, for example, while the Friends of the Dominican Republic were perejiling Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans and Haitian-looking Dominicans to death, while genocide was, in fact, in the making, Abelard kept his head, eyes, and nose safely tucked into his books (let his wife take care of hiding his servants, didn't ask her nothing about it) and when survivors staggered into his surgery with unspeakable machete wounds, he fixed them up as best he could without making any comments as to the ghastliness of their wounds."[12]. This is foreshadowing of the intimacy between Lola and Yunior yet to come. He supports the regime in order to keep his family safe, but runs out of luck when Trujillo decides he wants to seduce Abelard’s beautiful oldest daughter Jacquelyn. [56] In a poll of American literary critics organised by BBC Culture (the arts and culture section of the international BBC website) in 2015, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was voted the twenty-first century's best novel so far. With her dark skin and headstrong manner, Beli does not fit in at her prestigious private school. Similarly, Oscar remembers a "Golden Mongoose" which appeared just before he throws himself from the bridge [38] and again when he is beaten in the canefield for the first time. During his imprisonment, Socorro committed suicide, Jackie "was found drowned" in a pool, Astrid is struck by a stray bullet, and his third child is born (248-250). Asking her not to abuse that power was akin to, as Díaz says it "asking the persecuted fat kid not to use his recently discovered mutant abilities" (94). Because when she awildas out on your ass you'll know pain for real. A family curse, mysteriously missing manuscripts and one man’s love trials are the focus of the novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz tells the story of a family of Dominican immigrants, focusing primarily on the life of Oscar de León, a descendant of the diaspora that directly experienced the horrors of the Trujillo regime of the mid 20th century. His culture of placing appearance above all else does nothing to deemphasize appearance in Dominican culture, seeing as in a normal political atmosphere people follow their leaders, much less in the tightly controlled Trujillan dictatorship. The book ends as Yunior, Lola, and Beli mourn Oscar. After recovering from her initial shock of the metamorphosis, she discovered how "her desirability was in its own way, Power" (94). How di… Diaz creates irony using this strong dictator as a minor character and focusing on the characters that would have otherwise been marginalized. As Oscar has no father or brothers, Yunior is the only male with whom he can discuss his romantic yearnings; Yunior is his access into masculinity. The book starts by introducing Yunior, the fictional author of Oscar Wao’s biography, and the curse that has shaped the events of Oscar’s life. Even after death his evil lingered. Beli desired the same romantic experience as Oscar, despising school in her early years from being "completely alone" (83). [42] At the end of the novel, Yunior manages to develop a healthier form of masculinity that allows him to love others and to achieve intimacy. Oscar is a shy, overweight teenager who loves to read and write science fiction and fantasy and is searching for love. Three years later, Oscar goes again to visit Santo Domingo and meets Ybón, a prostitute who lives next door to La Inca. Díaz's use of Yunior as the main narrator of the book strengthens the idea of the novel as metafiction. Oscar's infinite capacity for empathy and connection with other human beings is a superpower in its own right. Part 1, Introduction Summary. [29], Throughout the novel, Diaz uses metaphors and symbols to present Dominican history as well as the fuku curse. "[15], His informal and frequent use of neologisms can be seen in sentences such as a description of Trujillo as "the Dictatingest Dictator who ever Dictated"[16] or his description of the effectiveness of Trujillo's secret police force: "you could say a bad thing about El Jefe at eight-forty in the morning and before the clock struck ten you'd be in the Cuarenta having a cattleprod shoved up your ass. Ybon is kind to Oscar but rejects his frequent romantic overtures. The canefields in the Dominican Republic are a space made significant through their history of slavery and violence—a racialized space. Through its overarching theme of the fukú curse, it additionally contains elements of magic realism. Oscar falls into a deep depression and attempts suicide on the last day of the school year. His first book "Drown" was now being widely recognized as an important landmark in contemporary literature—ten years after publication—even by critics who had either entirely ignored the book or had given it poor reviews. Instant downloads of all 1389 LitChart PDFs That peace is cruelly destroyed when the Capitán finds out that Oscar is back and shoots him in a canefield. After "getting dissed by a girl", he attempts to kill himself by drinking two bottles of liquor and jumping off the New Brunswick train bridge. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Summary The novel begins with the narrator's description of the curse, called fukú americanus—a curse of doom, specifically that of the New World. LitCharts Teacher Editions. [23], In addition of the fantastical elements of the novel, Oscar Wao also includes a degree of political critique, in the discussion of the Trujillo dictatorship of the Dominican Republic, as well as a portrayal of metafiction, in Oscar’s own writing on fantasy novels. In 1955, La Inca finds her and gives her a new life in Baní. In this way, zafa can be read as an undoing of colonialism because as fuku brings misery and bad luck, zafa has the potential to foil it and restore a more favorable balance. The three Cabral girls are split up and the older two die tragically young. Even under Trujillo, however, the power of appearance is called into the question, as appearance's power ultimately takes second place to the power of words. In chapter two, Lola narrates her own story from the first person. Historically, the mongoose was imported from Asia during the 18th century. Cabral is incarcerated, tortured and almost destroyed at least in part as a result of words he has spoken and written, and Trujillo has Cabral's entire library, including any sample of his handwriting, destroyed. Yunior attempts to reform Oscar in the image of the Dominican American “player,” but Oscar resists this transformation. The novel describes the history of relationships between dictators and journalists in terms of comic book rivalries as well: "Since before the infamous Caesar-Ovid war they've [dictators and writers] had beef. Oscar falls hopelessly in love, despite his family’s disapproval. Abelard remains in prison for the rest of his life. Interweaved throughout, Yunior also tries to explain and understand his own failed relationship with Oscar’s sister, Lola, and the Dominican heritage that binds them all together. [60] The production received mixed reviews, with critic Robert Hurwitt stating that "'Fukú' doesn't show us how that works or what the curse has to do with anything ... for that, you have to read the book. [1] The book chronicles both the life of Oscar de León, an overweight Dominican boy growing up in Paterson, New Jersey, who is obsessed with science fiction and fantasy novels and with falling in love, as well as a curse that has plagued his family for generations. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was widely praised and appeared in a number of "best of the year" book lists. Díaz frequently uses references to works of science-fiction and fantasy. Díaz moves between several styles in the novel as the narrative shifts to each of the characters. The mongoose further stops a bus directly in front of her, preventing her from being hit and providing her transportation to safety. The main characters, like Oscar and Lola, are down-and-out outsiders to many aspects of American and Dominican cultures. Her greatest love, known as the Gangster, works for the dictator Trujillo, and Beli soon finds herself in way over her head when she gets pregnant. Oscar is a Dominican-American who grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, and struggled his whole life to find community, a sense of identity, and, above all, love. His speech often exemplifies code switching, switching rapidly from a lively, Caribbean-inflected vernacular, replete with frequent usage of profanity to wordy, eloquent, and academic prose. Yunior implies that storytelling is a way to acknowledge the past and its influence over one's life, a way to make sense of what has happened, and is the starting point for healing. Junot Diaz has come to literary fame with his work The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Sugar and canefields were so important to the Spanish as they fueled their wealth and the creation of a white elite, and thus plantation economy, in Hispaniola. Reaching back further in history, the novel brings in Abelard Cabral, Beli’s father and Oscar and Lola’s grandfather. Lola decides to run away to be with a boy named Aldo, who lives with his aging father in Wildwood, NJ. Yunior even makes reference in the footnotes to his present life earlier in the novel than when he describes it in Chapter Eight. VanBeest points out that in spite Oscar's lack of machismo, he possesses "other masculine traits that Yunior admires." Or like the fat blackish kid in Beto Hernández's Palomar. [29] Lola’s daughter is a character that holds the future for the De Leon family and symbolically the entire Dominican culture. [32], Even when talking about Oscar, Yunior does not focus on the fact that he is nerdy and does not hide it, but rather makes allusions to science fiction and fantasy works that Oscar would be familiar with. It shares the story of a man named Oscar Wao. [41] Much later, after Oscar returns home to La Inca's to try to be with Ybón, he also ends up assaulted in a canefield, but this time by the Capitan's friends. The novel contains significant exposition on Oscar's family history. She eventually was tossed around the extended family and eventually "sold", yes "That's right-she was sold" (253). [42] For example, Yunior envies the way Oscar can develop friendships with women (like Jenni) and talk to them about non-sexual topics. Trujillo's rapacity towards women knew no bounds, employing "hundreds of spies whose entire job was to scour the provinces for his next piece of ass" (217). In the case of Beli in the cane fields, the narrator shares that whether her encounter with the mongoose "was a figment of Beli's wracked imagination or something else altogether" cannot be determined (149). When he and his sister Lola spend summers with their great-aunt in the Dominican Republic (DR), Oscar realizes that he wants to become an author. This runs in parallel to several central themes of the novel regarding identity, as Yunior's code switching alludes to a struggle between his Dominican identity and his identity as a writer. Furthermore, when Trujillo is referenced by Yunior in his narration, the descriptions are entirely negative. "[44], The novel opens with the epigraph: "Of what import are brief, nameless lives…to Galactus? The plot of this novel skips from past to present and focuses on different characters’ stories at various times in order to convey the long-lasting impression that Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961 left. Yunior provides analysis and commentary for the events he is relaying in the novel. Because of this, Trujillo has an important role in the story, but is ultimately weakened due to the given perspective. [29], Although Yunior is the narrator of the story, and everything that is said comes from his perspective, the story revolves around the unlikely hero, Oscar. She has a daughter, Isis, and keeps in contact with Yunior in honor of Oscar’s memory. [40] In this section of the book Yunior says, "Canefields are no fucking joke, and even the cleverest of adults can get mazed in their endlessness, only to reappear months later as a cameo of bones". Thus, the empty pages in Yunior's dreams signify that the future has yet to be written despite the checkered past, in both his life and in the painful history of oppression and colonialism in the Dominican Republic. "[53] In another section, Felix Wenceslao Bernardino, an agent of Trujillo is metaphorically described as the Witchking of Angmar. 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