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Summary Of When The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

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When The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao- Junot Diaz’s coming-to-America novel came out in 2007- it took the literary world by storm. Author Junot Diaz’s endearing blend of humor and history forms a challenging, yet exciting narrative. The 352-page novel unravels the tale of Oscar, “a disastrously overweight ghetto nerd,” from Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar, the character who the book is named after, shares his home, and part of the novel, with his old world mother and rebellious sister. The novel is written in different perspectives, alternating characters back and forth. A devotee of what Dominican bullies call “the stereotypical white-boy nerd,” Oscar is “a hardcore sci-fi and fantasy man,” whose greatest ambition is to write a space fantasy …show more content…

Oscar’s longing for a transcendental love is overshadowed by the fuku, a hereditary curse. This curse weaves it way through the story, inviting the reader to interpret its meaning and dive deeper into the plot; nevertheless, reigning terror over the Dominican Republic and their people. Every Dominican family claims to have a wild fuku story, especially Oscars. The novel won a handful of prizes, including the John Sargent Senior First Novel Prize and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. It later won 2007’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critic’s circle awards, and made the BBC’s, “Best Novel of the Century So Far” list. As a result, Junot Diaz was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, better known as a “genius …show more content…

The novel shows how such experimentations are driven by both internal and external (community) factors. The characters trouble with not only finding themselves, but also with how to do that while remaining true to, and fitting gin with, their Dominican or Latino heritage. Oscar is ostracized for his inability to blend in with other Latino boys. His true personality, as well as his interests, science fiction and fantasy, are unable to fit the mold. In contrast, Yunior hides his personality due fear of risking rejection and alienation. He pretends to be a stereotypical Latino, when, really he is just as big, if not a bigger fan of comic book and sci-fi. Yunior wishes to be like Oscar. Although the story’s tone is somewhat sympathetic towards Oscar’s insecurities, it underlies the respect and awe Yunior has for

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A story about Oscar a Dominican boy growing up the New Jersey. The novel explains the hardship Oscar Wao experience growing up, as an overweight Dominican boy raised in a Dominican family. Oscar was not an average or good-looking kid, he was a ghetto nerd. Oscar mother Hypatia is a single mother who raised him and his sister, who works two jobs.

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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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The scene described on pages 143-152 of Junot Diaz’s The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a horrific one, yet it is essential to the novel due to its power and its effective use of language. In the pages listed, there is are descriptions of La Inca praying for Belicia and the two Elvises beating Belicia to near death. La Inca is able to gather many people together to unite in prayer in hopes of saving Belicia. Even those who were not supportive of her decisions and those who considered her to be a whore.

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He feels embarrassed and feels out of place compared to his neighbor David. As a young boy, noticing how different he is treated because he is part Mexican and also in the lower class, can take a toll on how he wants to change who he is. It’s understood

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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: A Fukú Story to End the Curse of the Dominican People In his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz brings to light a piece of Dominican history that he sees as both relevant and problematic. Within the first few pages of the novel, the speaker identifies his story as a fukú story. Fukú americanus is a curse supposedly specific to people of the Dominican Republic, which Díaz uses to shape the circumstances surrounding his novel. The novel works to identify the true nature of fukú and transform it into something concrete rather than an ambiguous curse.

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Has life ever been so horrible that you thought it was out of your control? Your life could start off wonderful, as you grow instead of life getting better everything just gets worse and worse. In The Brief LIfe of Oscar Wao, Diaz argues that the supernatural, specifically, the Dominican Republic, curse “Fuku” is present in individuals lives; he conveys this argument through Oscar and Beli’s encounters with the Mongoose. Beli and Oscar’s encounters with the Mongoose are examples of the presence of the supernatural, arguably "fuku," in their lives and the effect that fuku has on them. Beli is the first character to encounter the Mongoose; she sees it when she gets beat up for her affair with the Gangster, who is married to Trujillo’s sister.

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The experience of the American Dream, is beautifully captured in the novels’ The Circuit and Breaking Through, by Francisco Jimenez. The author’s own story is told through the character of Francisco, a boy that goes through life’s obstacles as an immigrant. The first book, The Circuit focuses on Francisco’s early childhood as he, along with his family travel from Mexico into the U.S border in hopes of a better life. Impoverished by poverty in Mexico, Francisco, as a child, struggles to find the balance in California, as migrant workers.

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In the Hispanic culture men are described as strong, unfaithful, and dominant in order to show their masculinity. However, the main character Oscar Wao masculinity was different from the norm. Oscar Wao was a nerdy kid who was fat and loved comic books and fantasy novels. All of his friends and family will bullied him about his lack of interest in girls,sports,and his body because it was against the stereotype of a real Dominican man. Oscar was expected to

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The trait most associated with being a Dominican was its focus on hypermasculinity. Essentially an exaggerated male stereotype of being physically attractive, sexually active, emotionally devoid, and aggressive. In terms of physical attractiveness, Oscar had put on weight and had horrible acne during his elementary and high school years. Everyone in his community saw him as a parigüayo, party watcher, which the narrator describes him as someone with, “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, dominoes, no knack for music, business, dance, no hustle, no rap, no G” (Diaz 20).

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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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