The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz contains many different themes throughout the story. The aspect I am most interested in exploring is the relationship between dictators and writers. Junot Díaz portrays that writers can dictate what they wish their readers to know, just as dictators of a country can divulge or withhold any information they wish to their citizens. Yunior, the narrator, holds the power of telling readers the life stories of the de León-Cabral family. I am also interested…
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Junot Diaz’s novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao overall theme is love but with the death of a character it allows the reader to understand the character a lot easier. In most novels the reader is rooting for the protagonist to finally get what they deserve and this novel is no different. The death of the main character, Oscar De Leon, comes to a shock and with that it changes the entire meaning of the book. Love is something someone should get to experience even fictional characters but when…
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao By: Junot Díaz 1. My initial response while reading The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao was that it was very culturally involved and it taught me about the way of life for the Dominicans. For example, the author uses humor to show us that Dominican men are always focused on having a woman in their life. They always believe that “they will always get the girl”. What I remember best from the reading is that the main character, Oscar, was always trying to get a…
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“Fuku—generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World,” written in the Pulitzer Prize winning novel—The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which is written by Junot Diaz (Diaz 1). If you make a bad choice, you will receive “fuku,” says Junot Diaz in the interview on Q TV (YouTube). In the interview with Slate Magazine, Diaz says that the novel “is all about the dangers of dictatorship” (Rourke 3). It describes how Oscar’s family’s three generations have been affected…
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In Junot Díaz’s novel, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a very critical and pivotal aspect of the novel itself is Díaz’s continual inclusion of Dominican history. Díaz uses them as points of reference to relate the fictional story back to the nonfiction culture it is built around. His use of paramount people and events tied back to the Dominican Republic connect his characters back to their ancestral roots. Therefore, the concept of history is vital to the development of the novel because…
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He was then strapped to a table as a pendulum swung back and forth above him. He narrowly escaped with his life. Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, and Junot Diaz all share a theme of fear and death in the works, The Pit…
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In Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, it describes Oscar de León as the main character and be filtered through the distinctly male voice of Yunior, but it is firstly the history of the handful of women who shape Oscar's whole life. His only male examples are the stereotypical "Dominican men" who are among those who hurt his own family. As applied to Oscar Wao, feminist literary criticism allows the reader to approach the story from the woman's point of view, exploring the tremendous…
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that deal with heteronormativity immensely are The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and The Intuitionist. In Junot Díaz novel about Oscar Wao, it brings life to the meaning of being a masculine Dominican man. In Oscar’s case it deals with gender and his sexual orientation. Yunior describes the idea heteronormativity in comparison to Oscar and states, “Had 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… had…
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The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz, is a novel that discusses the history of the Dominican Republic, traumatic high school experiences, obesity, and the “expectations” of a Dominican man. Díaz’s choice of voice for Yunior de Las Casas, one of the main narrators is both distinct and relatable making it very easy for readers to connect and feel empathy towards the protagonist, Oscar Wao. Yunior recounts Oscar’s life story in a very biased and opinionated manner, especially when…
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he did not want to do, that he could not bear to do. He listened” (307). The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is about a boy who does not quite fit in, and he spends his whole life pining after different women. He is Dominican and his family has had a dark history. Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, uses Oscar to argue that anyone can be a hero, whether they save one person or many. Oscar had been observing Ybon for a while, before she finally…
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