Use Of Magical Realism In The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

Literature has always had a powerful role in society, especially in a multicultural environment. It can serve as a documentation of history, emotionally connect with readers with prevalent themes and topics that are being discussed in the world today, and can also serve as a way to help readers understand the political problems arising in another country. Authors use multiple techniques to convey their compelling message, especially to highlight political issues to offer answers and solutions to the reader. Junot Díaz’s novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, exactly does this. The novel uses magical realism to describe the Dominican Republic’s reigning dictator, Rafael Trujillo, who still has a lingering presence today despite being assassinated

The novel’s first line opens with the concept of the fukú;

They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles. Fukú americanus… generally a curse or a doom of some kind. (Díaz

Unlike any curse though, the fukú is a real curse that affects everyone; “everybody [even] knew someone who’d been eaten by a fukú” (Díaz 2). The narrator of the novel, along with all the characters, are scared of the presence of the fukú, believing that the “fukú believes in” (Díaz 5) them. Coincidentally, the fukú arrived when Trujillo came into power, making it “clear he and it (fukú) had an understanding, that them two was tight” (Díaz 3). Most of the problems that the characters encounter with the spirit of fukú are related to Trujillo in some way. Trujillo never makes a physical presence in the novel, yet, his presence can be found everywhere—in the form of the fukú. It can be inferred that Trujillo is the main character of the novel because of his haunting presence in the novel—hovering over the main protagonists. Díaz even uses the death of Oscar— shot to death by the capitán of the police force and his goons—turn back to Trujillo. Oscar’s sister, Lola, believes the death of Oscar was because of Trujillo and the curse of the fukú, swearing “she would never return to that terrible country”, the Dominican Republic, believing “ten million Trujillos is all [they] are” (Díaz 324), knowing his presence will never go away. When her daughter is born, even though she is far away from the Dominican Republic and is shielded by “a string on her