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Oscar Wao Character Analysis

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Throughout Dìaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, readers visualize Oscar’s self-reflection through his physical characteristics. As a young boy, he had confidence and was “a “normal” Dominican boy raised in a “typical” Dominican family, his nascent pimp-liness was encouraged by blood and friends alike” (Díaz 11). However, as he got older, he did not keep his “normal” Dominican appearance of dark skin and “semi-kink hair in a Puerto Rican afro” (Díaz 20). In fact, he began to develop much like the majority of American children today; Oscar began obese. Ballooning up to 260 pounds, wearing cheap glasses, and being covered in ache (Díaz 19-29) (again, a typical American teenager these days) made Oscar an easy target for bullying and humiliation.
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2. This passage from Junot Diaz’s Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao is significant because it initiates the growing tension between Oscar and his love for comic books. Oscar is fascinated by the idea of superheroes which developed his interest to write comic books. Oscar only had a wish to have a girlfriend, but the fact that Oscar’s love for comic books and sci-fi animes was not allowing him to have a girlfriend. These comic books and animes in a way distract him from seeing that what is happening in the world which makes him ill-informed about the world.

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In Dominican and almost every culture today, relationships are a thing of the past. Woman are viewed as commodities, but Oscar does not view them this way and for this and other reasons he struggles. At seven years old Oscar is described to be chasing all of the girls around. This act of chasing girls and having multiple girls to cling to was accepted in Oscar’s family. In fact, his family actually encouraged the behavior.

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1786 Words | 8 Pages

He is someone that throughout the story is constantly in high emotion and loves unconditionally. The very first line of the book Oscar is introduced as a hero, it states, “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 bachatero, not a playboy with a million hots on his jock” (11). Oscar was not someone that people think of as a traditional hero. He was obese, geeky, and extremely persistent, but that did not make him any less of a hero in the story. Oscar broke the typical idea of what a hero looks like and the majorities perception of one.

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190 Words | 1 Pages

In The Brief Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, Diaz starts the book off by describing a curse that has plagued the DR since the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean. This curse which is known as the fuku americanus will, later on, become a major theme of the book, and will individually have its own effect of the protagonist, Oscar Wao, and anyone closely related to him. Oscar is this fairly young Dominican male who hasn't been very successful in his endeavors, especially the one in finding true love. But one can conclude that the cause for his lack of success is due to the fuku which scourges him and his relatives. As Diaz tells the story of how this curse, the fuku, effects him and his people, he is known to use a crude, extreme,

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505 Words | 3 Pages

He mixes the two by creating a doubly marginalized character named Oscar; a nerdy Dominican kid who does not fit in with people of his ethnicity nor those outside it. Since he does not fit the stereotypical Dominican man and also is an immigrant, he faces an internal and external struggle of difficulty finding his place in the world. But even as an outsider, Oscar is still able to demonstrate both his Latin

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1620 Words | 7 Pages

Díaz states, “[Oscar] [h]ad none of the Higher Powers of your typical Dominican male, couldn't have pulled a girl if his life depended on it. Couldn't play sports for shit, or dominoes, was beyond uncoordinated, threw a ball like a girl. Had no knack for music or business or dance, no hustle, no rap, no G. And most damning of all: no looks,” (Díaz Chapter 1).

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338 Words | 2 Pages

Violence in Fiction The use of violence in fiction is beneficial, as well as purposeful in building and sustaining the author’s main point of the novel. In the article “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” Thomas C. Foster states “[Violence and tragedy are] accidents only on the inside of the novel - on the outside they’re planned, plotted, and executed by somebody, with malice aforethought.” Accidents and tragedy in novels are purposely planned to keep the story moving along, but also to push the character(s) to reach a realization of the bigger picture, and the author’s intended purpose. In The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz includes much violence in his story, whether verbal, or like on page 146, physical.

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The stories of Junot Diaz feature various elements of social and personal issues that are highly prevalent in young Latinx men, primarily the compulsion and adverse effect of machismo, the poignancy of being an outcast in one’s community, and the lack of a father figure in a boy’s life. The first set of short stories prominently feature Ysrael, a Dominican boy whose face was disfigured by a pig when he was an infant. In “Ysrael”, he is the object of Yunior’s fascination, and the victim or Rafa’s (Yunior’s brother) torment.

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1431 Words | 6 Pages

The Need to Fit in and Belong     The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, is about a Dominican boy named Oscar, his sister Lola, and his mother Beli. Throughout the novel, Oscar is constantly complaining about how miserable his life is and he constantly falls head over heels with many girls, even if he had only seen them once. His mother lived a difficult life as, in which she fell madly in love with a gangster and that led to serious consequences. In order to fit in, both Oscar and Beli both think about their sexual lives as a way to feel accepted. In addition, they both intensely crave the love and approval of someone, to the point to where they are willing to do anything for that person.

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1007 Words | 5 Pages

In the book of the “Brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao, the characters are outsiders who are struggling to fit into society at the time. They are often discriminated against because of their dominant culture that does not fit in as a “typical” American. They stand out because of their race and cultural background that stand out from the rest which leads them to have struggles on the way and no support from the surrounding communities. In the book, the main character is Oscar who is Dominican-American, he struggles with the sense of isolation and alienation from his surrounding peers and close family. He was bullied growing up for not fitting in because he was overweight, socially awkward and not normal to certain kids.

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1345 Words | 6 Pages

Dictators control the information that people are told. In The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz writes about Oscar’s life by using the viewpoints of all of his relatives and his friend. His friend, Yunior, talks about how the family has a curse that started with Oscar’s grandfather, Abelard. The curse is then transferred to Beli, Abelard’s daughter, and finally to Beli’s daughter, Oscar. During the Trujillo regime, the residents of the Dominican Republic have no freedom (Galindez).

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487 Words | 2 Pages

Nicole Martinez P.2 2.23.17 In Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot utilizes female sexuality as a form of power. Lola uses the power her sexuality to escape from her problems. While in Santo Domingo, Lola finds out her mother wants her back home.

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2127 Words | 9 Pages

The role that gendered expectations plays in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao constructs detrimental limitations for males while reducing females to sexual beings. The prevalent Dominican males in the novel reinforce an absolute definition of masculinity characterized by dominance, attractiveness, manifestation of sexuality, and oppression of women. Such masculinity is constructed through every aspect that Rafael Trujillo, the ultimate Dominican male, embodies. Through the endorsement of expected Dominican hypermasculinity, females are overtly hypersexualized by means of objectification, while men are confined to fulfilling expected roles. In failing to embody Trujillo’s misogynistic, patriarchal ideal, males and females in the novel marginalize

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938 Words | 4 Pages

The Curse of Oscar Daniel Plummer Charlestown High School Have you ever felt cursed in your life-like anything you do or say causes bad luck? Well, this is Oscar de León. He is the protagonist in the novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. Oscar de León is a Dominican-American man who grew up in Paterson New Jersey and is the son of Beli, the brother of Lola, and the most cursed one out of all his family members.

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887 Words | 4 Pages

The theme of Junot Diaz’s, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is that where a person currently is in their life is more important than where they come from. He expresses this thoroughly in his stories and commentaries on social issues that mostly share the same theme of place. In addition, in how growing up in his neighborhood in New Jersey affected his view on the world and the way that he sees other places now. The author makes it a point to express the idea that one’s own decisions presently are the most important to their identity.

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