Summary: The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

In the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, the Dominican culture is told through a stereotypical Dominican named Yunior. As stated in the title, the novel discusses Oscar Wao’s brief life through his family’s curse called Fukú. The history of his family is presented through their downfalls in love, which overtime accumulates into a burden for Oscar to experience the same events his family members had once experienced. This Fukú that has been lurking within the Cabral family’s history from the Dominican Republic to the United States is commonly found through dysfunctional relationships between men and women. The known concept in relationships called love transforms into a corrupted power source for abuse based on the

Anticipation for the worse becomes apparent when Trujillo “dismissed Abelard with a flick of [the] wrist” (233) when Abelard brought only himself to the party. Abelard gradually feels like every invitation for any occasion was as if it was a “life-or-death affair” (233). In other words, choosing not to bring his family to a party can be a death sentence for him or even involving his family can cause his wife or daughter’s life to be taken. Abelard having this belief sways him to go out with his friends and excessively drink to prove that everything appears to be normal in his everyday life. With a drunk Abelard comes with risky quips that can cause problems to arise. While he is being helped by his friends to put the bureau in his Packard, he comments about dead bodies not being in his trunk. The recalled event is still arguable; however, Abelard’s fate was already decided. Whether he said “[n]ope, no dead bodies here” or “[n]ope, no dead bodies here, Trujillo must have cleaned them out for me” (234-235). With a simple mention of Trujillo, Abelard is arrested for slander against the “president.” His time in prison served as a solid foundation for Fukú; but, the worse was still yet to come. Once Sorocco, his wife, visited him, his third/final daughter was unveiled. This becomes the big question for Abelard, whether it is

Beli grew up in a foster family due to the Fukú her father created, which cost her the lives of her family. The foster family enslaved her and mistreated her horribly. The mistreatment her foster family inflicted on her led to the adoption of Beli by La Inca. Beli, like Oscar, has an infatuation with the opposite sex. This infatuation leads her to become pregnant with a man known as the “Gangster” (119). As one can tell, the label for the man that impregnated Beli seems to allude to the Fukú her father created. The Gangster seems to be a physical version of the Fukú, which coincides with the abuse Beli endures for him. Beli’s persistence leads her into a life threatening event during her relationship with the Gangster. Beli reveals to the Gangster that she is pregnant; however, as expected, “[i]n her memory he never told her to get rid of it” (137). Like mother like son, Beli optimistically perceives the worse statements in a good way to her liking. This perception blinds her on taking note of any suspicious activity that the Gangster commits. As a result, she learns, at a later time, that the Gangster is “married to…[a] Trujillo” (138). Notice a direct connection made between Beli and Abelard through Trujillo. Both, Beli and Abelard, begin to suffer due to a corrupted political power in the Dominican Republic, which created the Fukú to exist within the Cabral