Dominican Masculinity

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“O it’s against the laws of nature for a Dominicano to die without fucking at least once,” (174) said Yunior, during a night in his college dorm room with Oscar Woa. These two characters are from a book titled “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Woa” a story about Oscar trying to find real love for the first and the journey his friends and his family go through during this time. In this book there is a reappearing theme that continues to show itself, that theme is Dominican masculinity. Dominican masculinity is described as a manly man who can pull women and that also has this certain type of mojo that defines their personality. The only things is that this certain masculinity rather than representing a healthy self-esteem and sense of power, Dominican masculinity represents a cocky kind of self-destructive personality that seems to emotionally stunt the men characters. Most of the male characters seem to have this certain masculinity, except our protagonist Oscar.
Each character in this novel all seem to have at least one chapter in the story told from their point of view. One of these characters is named Yunior. Yunior could have been a poster child of Dominican masculinity. He was a very good-looking masculine man due to the fact he lifts weights often, he had a lot of friends, and was very popular. He also had a very large ego due to the fact that he is a womanizer, but because he was a womanizer he could never seem to hold onto a girlfriend, because each time they always found out he was cheating. Which caused Yunior to be a little emotional damaged since some of these women he grew strong feelings for. But secretly Yunior is a slight nerd, yet that’s all it ever is, a secret. Even though Yunior is a perfect example of Dominic...

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...rom the world. But all he wanted to do was try and fit in and fall in love. He thought that all Dominican males had this type of mojo that made them stand out among others; all Oscar wanted to do was be a masculine Dominican male and in his search for this type of masculinity his life was ended short. Dominican masculinity instead of representing a sense of power and masculinity, it represents a self-destructive personality that backfires. All Oscar wanted was to have this masculinity but he nearly kills himself once he gives up his search for it. Yet Yunior can’t have a healthy relationship and it affects him. I think Dominican masculinity in the book “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” represents something that can never really be achieved, and if achieved will not make you happy. But instead be happy for what you are and for what you have to offer the world.

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