The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao Essay

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Junot Diaz’ (2007) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao discusses the life of Oscar Wao, an overweight Dominican comic book loving-nerd spending a majority of his time pursuing the love and attention of the female characters in his life. His pride which was deeply rooted to that of his Machista ideology exhibited all throughout his homeland of the Dominican Republic began to deteriorate in his teenage years as a result of his grotesque and subpar characteristics to that of the ideal male of Dominican society. The novel offers the ability to dissect the differing perspectives of a female feminist and female machista reader living in the Dominican Republic in terms of who the actual novel is centralized around, how certain instances are socially …show more content…

For example, the lack of presentation from his mother, Beli, was further established throughout the novel as it further developed her overall persona and background as to why she was so blunt and brutally honest with Oscar. From the feminist perspective, it can be deduced that Beli was the epitome of individuality as she had face innumerable tribulations to establish herself with a tenacious attitude towards life and ability to freely express herself, which many women are unable to do so. “Telling Beli not to flaunt those curves would have been like asking the persecuted fat kid not to use his recently discovered mutant abilities. With great power comes great responsibility…Our girl ran into the future that her new body represented and never ever looked back.”(Diaz, Page 94) exhibits the perspective that a feminist would establish during the reading of the novel. However, a woman who identifies under the idealism of machismo can argue that the novel is mainly focused on ridiculing Oscar to the point in which the reader is able to sympathize with the thoughts and emotions that he has had to face throughout the development of his life. “....his tío a box of condoms: Use them all, he said, and then added: On girls” (Diaz, 49) exhibits the concept that Diaz attempted to create in which Oscar’s development is purposely meant to be a prolonged process towards his primary of goal of having sexual intercourse with a woman due to it being a way of teaching the reader that he is essentially shaped by those around him. However, Oscar still attempts to create his own path and make decisions for himself that are

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