The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao Identity Analysis

The Generation stuck in Limbo Imagine being suddenly transported to a place with a different culture, language, and without your friends or peers with you. How does one navigate through an entirely foreign land and situation where everything becomes a new beginning? What happens to the history and identity one has grown up with? Can the two identities ever coexist? That is the reality that the 1.5 generation struggles with everyday. The 2007 award-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz, encapsulates this struggle for identity through its main character, Oscar De Leon. The 1.5 generation is stuck between two cultures resulting in them having to shift between two identities to find acceptance and their authentic self.

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). Additionally, his physical unattractiveness was so apparent that even his mother acknowledges it when he asks her (Diaz 30). In this moment, Oscar begins developing an anti-social behavior resulting from the realization of his physical unattractiveness surrounding himself with hobbies he could enjoy in isolation like immersing himself with literature, writing, and other forms of American/Japanese media. Living in a Dominican community, their sexuality was an inherent part of their life except for Oscar. Within his family, his tio Rudolfo would casually insert his sexual encounters with multiple women in conversations (Diaz 24). And his sister, Lola, would often bring her friends over where Oscar would be forced to listen to them talk about their sex lives (Diaz 26-27). As a result of this, Oscar would develop an unhealthy obsession towards finding love and losing his virginity, where he would engross himself in sexual and romantic fantasies with girls he liked and have an unhealthy obsession towards them. Often to the point where he would cry in the bathroom in isolation knowing that such fantasies will never be reality (Diaz 23-24). One of the reasons