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Summary Of The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

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In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, the reader follows the story of Oscar de Leon as told by his college roommate, Yunior. Although the novel is named after Oscar and depicts his life, the information given tells more about Yunior than Oscar. In many ways, however, Oscar serves as a foil to Yunior, showing the hardships of achieving masculinity in Dominican culture. While, to the public, Yunior is the typical masculine, sexually-driven posterchild of Dominican culture, so much of him is shaped by his relationship with Oscar. In some aspects, Oscar was able to mirror Yunior’s struggles, especially when it came to girls and masculinity, but he is also able to illuminate how hard Yunior struggled to fit in by being more true …show more content…

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 …show more content…

When Oscar is struggling to appear masculine, Yunior looks better in comparison. Yunior explains how “after the suicide drama nobody in Demarest wanted to room with [Oscar]... Me, a guy who could bench 340 pounds… put in my application for the writing section and by the beginning of September, there we were, me and Oscar. Together.” (169-70) Yunior had used Oscar to look heroic. Once again, however, after Oscar had met Ybon, it was “his chance to win.” (283) As Oscar was no longer the fat loser that Yunior had to take care of, his persona had completely left. Yunior needed to match his struggles with masculinity to Oscar in order to feel better, however, once he outgrew the need to mold into society, he found himself stuck in these same destructive

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