The brief wondrous life of oscar wao analysis

The story, therefore, aims to provide a means of studying the culture of the Dominican citizens who live in the United States. It explores the Dominican diaspora members with not only the use of dialect but also feminine and masculine roles as well as other conventional themes. This paper discusses some of the themes evident in the story as portrayed by Junot Diaz. Themes Gender and Femininity The author portrays how the Dominican culture regards members of the female gender as objects of desire and sex symbols. The worth of a woman wholly depends on her ability to attract the members of the opposite sex –men. To prove the level of degradation of a female in the society, the author creates a sense of casualness and normalcy regardless of the gravity of the topic.

Two characters, Oscar and Olga, became fat and nerdy as they grew, but the society looked at their bodies differently. It is for this reason that Oscar makes it through childhood successfully while Olga does not. The difference that only existed between the two is that of gender. However, the society expected Olga, unlike Oscar, to grow up in a way that would attract men. The author associates these genres to Oscar’s external status as a nerd. Dominican Masculinity Diaz emphasizes the aspect of sex as an important ingredient for being a male in the Dominican society. The Dominican male characters are violent, have more power than the females and are both physical and sexually attractive. The character Oscar, for instance, has one key aim of having a woman return his affection throughout the story.

He also seems to lack the ability to commit any violence or fight against the same. The author manages to prove the strength that love has, how different characters counter it by anger and revenge that eventually lead to violence. Both the characters’ love and anger towards one another influence the nature of the decisions that they end up making. Whereas romantic relationships are the primary drivers of the plot, other forms of love are also evident. Family love and friendship also form the basis of the novel. One instance that shows family love is the way fathers and mothers danced side by side as put by the narrator (Diaz 40). Lola also feels the effects of being an immigrant as she tries to find out where she belongs.

Racism Without a doubt, there are different racial hierarchies depicted in the novel. While on the highland, the de Leons have to deal with the realities of living in the United States as they are treated as second-class citizens there. The author illustrates the racial differences that exist between people from Haiti and those from the Dominican Republic. He does this by calling out the Trujillo for committing genocide against the Haitians, their erasure from the government records and the hatred that existed towards the dark complexion of the Haitian people. To do this, they have to develop vastly both in their private and public lives. Oscar’s nickname demonstrates his inability to fit into the Latino culture whereas Yunior’s shows his desire to display his true personality as a Dominican man.