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Summary Of The Brief And Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

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Life in the Dominican during the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina was as bad as one can expect a dictatorial reign to be, it sucked major ass. Junot Díaz, in his book The Brief and Wondrous life of Oscar Wao, he describes this type of life in the Dominican from the perspective of a boy named Oscar and his upbringing in the Dominican. Diaz also shares different perspectives and upbringings from Oscars family members like his sister, mother, and grandfather during Trujillo’s rule. Instead of presenting a length description of the Trujillo’s dictatorship and the events that transpired during his rule, Díaz tells a story of a family and their experiences in the Dominican to give a sense of how his rule effected people’s daily lives …show more content…

At the very beginning of the book he uses the folklore of fukù. He debates it origins, what it means, and uses it frequently through the book to describe unfortunate events. Kind of like karma, but taken more as a curse. As another example, in his chapter on the perspective of Oscar’s grandfather, Diaz mentions that Trujillo “dominated Santo Domingo like it was his very own private Mordor; not only did he lock the country away from the rest of the world… he acted like it was his very own plantation, acted like he owned everything and everyone, killed whomever he wanted to kill, sons, brothers, fathers, mothers, took women away from their …show more content…

These are two places where the story of Oscar takes place, and as such, makes Diaz more than qualified to tell this story of the Dominican and its impact on those that live there. In addition to his extensive knowledge about the Dominican, that is clearly seen through the book, Diaz also provides further background and history in rather lengthy footnotes he includes throughout the book. This allows him to clarify things such as events, places, people, and lingo that he uses without clouding the story of Oscar with lots of background and context. This helps the reader to understand what is going on without distracting them from the story of Oscar and his

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In this essay I will be talking about the author Junot Diaz and the social, political and histrocial context in which he wrote his stories. I will also be discussing about issues that were important to Diaz and what are his social and political convitions and how these convictions demonstrated his work such as Junot Díaz to speak on 'Immigration and Storytelling in the Age of Trump ' April 22, Author Junot Diaz stripped of honor after speaking out against the Dominican Republic and Junot Díaz wins world 's richest short story prize. Junot Diaz Born on December 31st 1968, is a fiction writer who was born in the Dominican Republic specifically Santo Dominigo. Diaz was the middle child in a family of five kids and immigrated to the U.S with

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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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In Diaz’s Narration, the use of Spanish has a purpose, it shows or reveals in certain degree hints of the traditions of Latin America and the Caribbean. Taking as an example “Fiesta 1980”, Diaz uses a lot the expression “Dios mio”, “Bendición”, “Que Dios te bendiga” (Meyer 172) reflecting the religiosity of the Dominicans since 68.9 percent of the population declare to have Roman Catholic as their religion (Buffington). This shows that most of the population is devoted to a Christian religion and that represents a big part of their beliefs and traditions and even though the narration is in English these words are in Spanish to emphasize the meaning that they had for them. This is a clear example of a mix of cultures through the language. Other words that are not translated into English are “Pastelito”, “Tostones”, “Chicharrones”, “Sancocho”, “Pernil” (Meyer 175-77), these are traditional foods of Dominican people and since they have a big meaning for their culture they remain in Spanish.

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The novel tells the various experiences of the women that existed in oscar’s life. There is a consistence of maltreatment of women starting from the beginning of the Cabral history and their fuku. The dominican republic is where the idea is patriarchy and the abuse of women stem from in the novel. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, president of the Dominican Republic, felt as ruler he could do whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted. This was true about the dictator, he was most noted for his desire for beautiful young women.

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