The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Book Report/Review Example

Appearance, lack of confidence and unpopular; all these terms are highly familiar to us. And especially to those who have the privilege of attending high school and college. These “tags” or labels, as one can call them are the everyday nightmare and terror of all those who are branded with them. It is all self-explanatory; all those poor souls who are or once were tormented because of their lack of certain expectances of society are nagged about being highly dorky or even nerdy. Junot Diaz’s masterpiece “The Wondrous life of Oscar Wao” manages to address this issue with a finesse and technique that has never been provided to this subject. His protagonist, Oscar Wao is a rejected boy moving in the society who lacks the physical appearance as well as the exposure to do and say the right things at the right time. It is a true portrayal of what goes on in life every day, but Diaz has managed to add the spark of fiction as well as humor to make this book even more interesting to read. Junot address’s the problem of existing in this world, harsh? Yes, True? Extremely! This book highlights the problem of men being suffocated in the fantasy of fiction and women are expected to do more than they can. It’s a tale of how Oscar’s life is affected by his dysfunctional family and how much his inner dreams are crushed regularly. Oscar Wao is the worst possible nightmare of any person who has gone through groveling social experiences in high school, college or even work. Oscar Wao is an extremely oversized boy who is known for his dorky outlook and lack of judgment with girls. He is from a typical Dominican family with a frustrated mother who works hard all day long and treats her kids with anything but love. Now, Oscar is a pity young character who has no father to support and guidance to lead him into the “manly” zone of life. In Chapter one Oscar’s sister comes to his support when Beli, his mother is hurling at him for crying because of girl trouble: “It wasn’t just that he didn’t have no kind of father to show him the masculine ropes, he simply lacked all aggressive and martial tendencies.” (Page 8) His problem was not the fact that he had no male guidance in his life; his uncle La Inca lived with them but was a drug addict. Naturally, Oscar was just not the man of aggression and violence. This initial part of the story clearly paves the path of what is to come in the book. How the lack of macho-ism caused problems for the protagonist. What can be worse than the fact that you are beaten up by your mother because you cry, whimper or just portray less aggression. Oscar even when he was seven got dumped by his girlfriend for another guy, who was somewhat more manly and dependable in ways that Oscar clearly wasn’t. His road to unacceptance started from this time onwards, girl problems always took their toll in Oscar’s life where he was rejected for other boys. Junot Diaz has marked his territory in the book in the initial stages by showing the implications of not being able to fall into the criteria of a certain societal norm. He has started the book with the introduction of a curse or a doom that has affected the people of that particular place due to a dictator called Trujillo. Now Oscar Wao is certainly affected by this myth of the so called curse, and it takes its form in his life in the shape of lack of masculinity and all the hardships that he faced due to it. Diaz has made his stance very clear that a rather powerful and highlighted identity of a Dominican male is his impressive looks and his physical attraction. Without these two things you can easily be ruled out especially in a race where you compete with men who possess all these qualities. A typical Dominican man as shown through various male characters of Yunior and Rudolfo were good looking, physically very attractive and extremely popular with girls. Their popularity rang so much that they had multiple girlfriends at the very same time. According to Yunior’s account in Chapter four, Oscar “seemed like the same to me, still massive and still lost. Still writing ten, fifteen, twenty pages a day, still obsessed with his fan boy madness. Do you know what sign fool put up on our dorm door? Speak, friend, and enter.” (Page 56, 57) This is what Yunior thought of Oscar, in fact this is exactly what everyone thought of Oscar: a Dominican who had nothing in common with a Dominican male except for the race maybe. His taste, rather luck with girls was steep low and his nerdy-ness and dorky-ness just amused everybody. At first this book might seem like a typical fantasy of Dominican male society. It might portray Diaz as a guy who might have mocked the people who are unable to fulfill the elms of being a male in that society. However, an important reason of writing this book in such a way was to bring the consequences in the spotlight if such a person is mistreated. His impression of Dominican males is such because it is a reality, this is exactly what is thought of them and expected of them. But there are many exceptions out there like Oscar, who might not act like Dominican males but they feel exactly what the rest of the male members do. Oscar’s dream of being close with a woman was always a dream, whenever he got close to achieving or living it, the girl left almost always because of another more “masculine” man even though he treats her bad. In the last chapter, his letter said: “So this is what everybody’s always talking about! Diablo! If only I’d known. The beauty! The beauty!” (Page 120) These words show the longing in his tone of just being accepted for once and getting what he always thought of. Oscar Wao was a determined character who took on life head on along with the lacking that he had, nevertheless he managed to make his life a little worthy in the end and he did not die a failure. Works Cited Junot, Diaz. The Brief Wonderous life of Oscar Wao . New York : Riverhead Book , 2008. Read More