It is not until later in the chapter that the audience is made aware that the narrator was Lola. This shift in voice is undoubtedly a choice made by Díaz to cause confusion amongst his audience. In doing so, Díaz makes the reader think about how Lola’s perspective could give insight on the true protagonist, Oscar. As the chapter continues, the audience begins to see Lola’s own development as a child and how it deeply contrasted Oscar’s growth. She, unlike Oscar, is often under the critique of her own mother as she grew up.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao writer by Junot Diaz. This book was published in 2007, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and recognized for one of the best books of 2007. The story is about Oscar Wao personal life, including his sister Lola, mother Hypatia Belicia Cabral, Yunior de Las Casas and Abelard.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is an extraordinary tale that takes you into the lives of Oscar Wao and his family members who are burdened with a terrible curse called fuku. The fuku spell began with Oscar’s grandfather, Abelard. Abelard angered the Dominican Republic dictator, Trujillo, after he allegedly made a joke about the dictator that turned into a crime. However, the real reason behind Abelard’s downfall was his refusal to introduce his daughter to Trujillo, who had a sexual appetite for young women.
There’s a direct relationship between the canefields and violence in the book, there had to be a reason for this. The canefields in the Dominican Republic was where the slaves worked when the Spanish colonizers came to the country, they were the cotton fields of the Dominican Republic. This is also when the fuku, or curse, was brought over the Dominican Republic from Europe as the narrator claims. ”It is believed that the arrival of Europeans on Hispaniola unleashed the fuku on the world, and we’ve all been in the shit ever since” (page 1). This must mean that canefields are part of the fuku the Europeans brought along.
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” written by Junot Daz, gifts us a profound tale of heartbreak and weakness but also persistence and resilience. It tells the story of Oscar de León, a Dominican-American boy who dreams of becoming a great writer and finding love despite being an overweight, nerdy, and socially awkward outlier from his peers. The novel interweaves Oscar’s life with the history of his family and the Dominican Republic, particularly focusing on the curse known as the fuk, which has plagued his family for generations. Daz shifts the narrative between different periods of time and perspectives to explore themes of identity, love, destiny, the supernatural, and the impact of history and tyranny. In chapters three and four, we
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz layers storytelling and meaning into its plot, with plenty of underlying messages, if the reader is willing to hunt for them a bit. From the relationships between similar characters like Lola and Beli to polar opposites like Yunior and Oscar, the reader sees different relationship and friendship dynamics play out and how such relationships are affected and looked upon by society. Oscar is a lonely, fantasy loving nerd who does not have much of a life, while Yunior has that machismo aspect that is focused on heavily in the story, from start to finish. In the story, Yunior and Oscar are both going to the same college, but Yunior has been rejected from every other residence, and when Lola asks a favor of Yunior to watch her brother Oscar, he gladly accepts since he has nowhere else to turn to. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Diaz uses Yunior
Oscar would constantly fall in love with every girl he met in fear that he would remain a virgin longer than his peers. Yunior illustrates Oscar “walking up to strange girls with his I-love-you craziness”. (176) Yunior spends so long talking about Oscar’s unhealthy obsession with girls, yet once he has Lola, whom he pined after for so long, Yunior cheats. It is up to Oscar when the two are both in relationships to ask “Why do you cheat on her…?” to which Yunior responds “If I knew that, it wouldn’t be a problem.” (313) When Yunior is teaching Oscar how to get girls, he seems to be a notorious player portrayed in a positive light, yet when Oscar no longer looks to Yunior as a role model, Oscar possesses the power to point out the bad side of Yunior’s charm and the flaws in the culture that sculpted
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” is a story that revolves around relationships. Obviously some of these relationships are between the main character and his/her counterparts, or family, or even opponents, but this book’s author would not dare make it so simple. Junot Diaz is known for venturing far outside the organization of storytelling and he makes no exception for “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” Thus, Diaz allows his characters to develop relationships with outside or real life parties, such as another entertainment franchise, modern world government, or even the book’s narrator.
Dr. Jekyll and Courtney Davidson would agree with the quote “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us, What matters is the part we choose to act on.” Dr. Jekyll and Davidson both are good people and they both had a share of an evil turn. Dr. Jekyll was a brilliant scientist that did a lot for his community but a dark side took over him and he chose to act on it.. Davidson had a dark side take over her when she began hazing during summer camp. So I believe that both of the characters would agree with the quote from Sirius Black from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
In this case, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a novel about a Dominican family, narrated
The novel peeks interest of many audience as the novel indulge a wide rage of reader to empathized with the struggles of trying to maintain a control over an identity within a high standard society as well as connecting to the readers by consolidating with the difficulties of going against an enforced ideals of love and family that critics against one’s own construction of a healthy relationship. The devised beautiful fictional tale, centers around a young girl named Celaya, recounting a collection of anecdotes accumulated by her eyes and ears. By embedding human characteristics, such as the attachment of love, the desire to find oneself, and the grasping on one’s culture, the development of a fiction character can strongly resembles any willed non-fictional character (living
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.
The fantasy is about Buttercup, a milkmaid, and Westley, a farm boy, who fall in love and have to face many obstacles. The story mainly develops the themes of true love and revenge. However, in the book, The Princess Bride by William Goldman, the story develops the theme of revenge and true love in more depth compared to the movie. First of all, the book provides a detailed past of each main character which makes the reader sympathize with them. For example, in the book, the author has dedicated four to five pages to understand Inigo’s and Fezzik’s past.
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.
My favorite character in “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” would have to be Lola de Leon. I like the punky vibe that she has. I like how she is rebellious and cuts off all her hair. Despite the bad relationship she has with her mother, I just like idea of her being independent and strong-willed. I’m not saying that her attitude is the way, but her courage and boldness is a trait that I would like to adapt.
