Understanding the Dominican culture in regards to masculinity plays a huge role into understanding Oscar as a person and the trouble he has fitting into his Dominican cultural identity. Masculinity in the Dominican culture means exerting power and control over everything. Men are the head of the household, the main provider, and are supposed to be excellent flirts. An example of …show more content…
As stated in the article “Machismo and the Dominican Republic”, this aggressive mindset of masculinity is very common among Dominicans and that it “is not recognized as a result of a social structure, but as a biological result” (“Machismo and the” n.d). Many believe that men are biologically supposed to be into those “masculine” activities such as sports, flirting, and displaying control and power because it is simply in there nature. Likewise, the fact that the mindset is popular among the culture brings up the issue pointed out in the novel of the clash between cultural identity and