The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao Summary

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. In doing this, Díaz also attempts to identify the zafa or solution to counteract this ancient course. With his portrayal of Beli and an allusion

The novel identifies fukú as “a curse or a doom of some kind” (Oscar Wao 1). The origin of this “curse” has roots in European colonization of the Dominican Republic and Díaz traces it through Dominican history to the reign of Trujillo, who he considers to be the ultimate source of fukú. With its historical roots, the fukú is simply the sum of the effects of history on the Dominican people. When asked about his mention of fukú in an interview, Díaz replied, “For me, though, the real issue in the book is not whether or not one can vanquish the fukú—but whether or not one can even see it…to be a true witness to who we are as a people and to what has happened to us” (“Junot Díaz”). Rather than seeing the curse for what is, people view it as an inescapable curse that has predestined their lives as seen in Yunior’s description of Oscar’s predicament: “He didn’t want this future but he couldn’t see how it could be avoided, couldn’t figure his way out of it” (Oscar Wao 268). The book also addresses this type of Dominican denial by describing it as “common throughout the Islands, five parts denial, five parts negative hallucination” (Oscar Wao 259). This denial is the true tragedy of fukú because without acknowledgement, there can be no

B. Yeats’ “Easter, 1916”, Díaz cements Beli’s transformation, which comments on how to deal with fukú or tragedies of the past. When La Inca tells Beli that she must leave the country to escape further harm, Beli laughs, to which La Inca replies, “Don’t laugh, mi negrita, for your world is about to be changed. Utterly. Yes: a terrible beauty is etc., etc.” (Oscar Wao 160). This line alludes to Yeat’s poem “Easter, 1916,” more specifically the repeated mantra in the poem: “All changed, changed utterly: / A terrible beauty is born” (Yeats 15-16). Yeats’ poem refers to the Irish nationalists, who he portrays as martyrs for their country. They died protesting the wrongs against their country. Out of the horrific results of their rebellion, Yeats clams they were transformed into something beautiful. Similarly, Beli suffers the results of the tragedies of her country’s past (the fukú) and refuses to be defined or defeated by them. Because of such an experience, La Inca tells her a terrible beauty is emerging in her, a beauty that can only be fashioned from tragedy, a beauty that a whole nation can both admire and aspire