Preview

Summary: The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
660 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Summary: The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao
Oscar: The Anti-Dominican The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao includes many instances of the novel’s protagonist, Oscar, falling in love with unattainable women, as well as other moments where Oscar feels pity for himself. Oscar spends most of the novel looking for a woman who will love him back, and his self-pity comes as a result of his failure to find a woman. Unlike many of his Dominican peers, who do well with the ladies, Oscar is not very handsome, nor is he able to talk to many girls. Oscar is also an avid fan of comics and science fiction, an interest that many people fin d unappealing. Oscar seems to be resisting the idea that Dominican men should be great womanizers who pride themselves on sleeping with a great number of women. Oscar seems to have gentlemanly intentions of having a meaningful relationship with a woman, unlike many other Dominican men. Oscar’s entire persona goes against his upbringing in a Dominican community in New Jersey, as he is the complete opposite of a stereotypical Dominican male. Oscar’s interest in comic books is a theme that is prevalent throughout the entire story. References to comics often appear after Oscar has a troublesome moment or encounter with a girl. For example, on page 14, Oscar faces an ultimatum when he is asked by one …show more content…
Oscar is described as being very heavy, having terrible acne and wearing big glasses and his hair in an afro. Compared to other Dominican guys, who were suave and well-coiffed, Oscar was very unattractive. Yunior tries to help out Oscar, offering to help him exercise. Oscar attempts to work out with Yunior by going running with him, but Oscsar is subject to many verbal attacks while jogging. These hurtful remarks, along with Oscar’s lack of physical fitness, cause Oscar to stop running, and thus, his appearance stays the same. Oscars love pursuits are some of the most important occurrences in the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    dominican masculinity

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Thesis: As one challenges the Dominican culture through characters in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, one gains an understanding of the motives and actions of Dominican men and their converse impact on women.…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Oscar Wao Essay

    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Firstly it is best to describe Oscar’s appearance to get a better idea of the character. Oscar never was a small man, and over the years of his life he tried a few times to fix it, but never could stay with it. In college his roommate Yunior tried to help him with working out but Oscar couldn’t stick to it (176-178). He did get in slightly better shape after his suicide attempt right before he graduated from college. All in all though he was always just a large nerdy guy. Right away it can be seen Oscar feels this body image he has is part of his curse adding to…

    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the novel, the reader understands Brian’s strong desire to escape from racial discrimination in Harlem and retreat to a safe place in Brazil that harbors acceptance among racial relations. Although Brazil does provides the opportunity to integrate into a society filled with racial acceptance, it is incompetent to take his desire at surface level without examining the potential homoerotic motivation pulling Brian toward…

    • 763 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Interpretive Essay

    • 1632 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, the reader is led through the novel with a lot of uncertain thoughts and questions about the main characters, one in particular Oscar Wao. When I first started working on the assignment my topic was what and who is a real Dominican man? What characteristics does a true Dominican man have? Why isn’t Oscar like all the other Dominican Men? I found it strange that as I began to look through passages I was finding more of what the opposite of a real Dominican man was. The narrator seemed to mostly use the main character Oscar Wao to show the good and bad in Dominican man. In the first chapter we see that progression of Oscar Wao from being a “typical” Dominican man to miserably failing the “so-called” characteristics and personality of a real Dominican man. My goal of this paper is to examine certain passages to get a clearer idea of what characters fall into Yunior’s placement of a real Dominican Man. It seems as though the narrator is defining a real Dominican Man as one that doesn’t really care about girls and takes advantage of them. Also it seems that many people use the words “typical” and “normal” to describe a true Dominican Man, I wonder if they mean a typical/normal man is one that has the perfect looks and so called perfect personality. But to me it seems as though the personality part is defined as being a jerk. I am going to do this by looking through passages and interpret what I believe the narrator is trying to convince the readers.…

    • 1632 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ogo: A Short Story

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It had been a long day of work at the slave trade company and Ogo was getting ready to fall asleep when Paama yelled, “Minu is gone!”. Ogo jumped out of his bed and ran towards Paama. “Do you know where Minu went?” “No, but he was kidnapped somehow”. So Ogo ran back to the slave trade company just in case Minu wanted to visit Ogo. When Ogo was running he saw his brother was being sold for a slave. Minu was boarding the slave ship, Jesus of Lübeck which was heading for Morocco. Ogo then knew that to find his brother he would have to sneak onto the next slave trade ship called the La Amistad. 40 minutes later La Amistad arrived and Ogo snuck on, barely staying out of the guards’ sight.…

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pa Ao's Life Story

    • 523 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As a child Pa’ao was taught customs and learnt to provide for themselves through hunting and gathering as well as how to fight. As he grew older Pa’ao along with his brother Lono Pele became well known priests of Samoa having been born and raised there their entire life. Pa’ao role was the keeper of the god Kukailimoku. Both were very strong, respected and accomplished in the arts of heathen life.They also both had a son they greatly loved and cherished. Pa’ao was very good at astronomy , navigation, and divination. Although we don’t know exact dates for his birth nor his discovery of the island of Hawaii there are many legends surrounding him and why he got to the island. The most known one being the story of his son being accused of stealing Lono Pele fruits.…

    • 523 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Michael displays a round character in the story. He is insensitive to emotions, and shallow in his relationship with Frances who is very involved, eager to please him yet she is insecure with her low self esteem. Michael gazes at every woman like a piece of art and when his wife asks why, he says, “ I casually inspect the universe”(312). Michael shows interest in art and nature and even wants to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A range of women interests him from “girls in the office”(315) to the “ girls in their summer dresses”(315). This long list of types of girls shows that he doesn’t only spot the good looking girl, but he will look at any and everyone. Even though, he is very committed in his relationship to his wife, he does not care what his wife thinks of his actions. He was like that when he was a kid, he is older now and he “still [loves] to walk along Fifth…

    • 554 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wonwoo: A Short Story

    • 1959 Words
    • 8 Pages

    "Yo, Wonwoo! Going to Dongho's party tonight?" One of his friends yelled a few metres away from where he sat. The raven-haired male responded with a gesture before continuing to keep the papers he had sprawled on the cafe's table, successfully completing an assignment before the next class.…

    • 1959 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Epiglottis – At the end of the water slide, Oscar gets off and realizes that he has just entered the Epiglottis Game Show. His task is to choose between door number one, the food passageway, and door number two, the windpipe. Oscar chooses door number two and wins. This means that he gets to continue on his adventure.…

    • 580 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Comic books have come a long way since their inception more than 75 years ago. Particularly in the past decade or so, comics have become increasingly recognized for their potential literary value. Offering a combination of reading and visual stimulation that research shows many pre-teen and teen-aged boys prefer, comic books can, according to some studies, help improve literacy. And this learning potential has not gone unnoticed.…

    • 458 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It seems that Oscar scores high on all five levels of the Big five dimensions of personality. He is the perfect model for the term “The Diamond personality”.…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Wait, so you’re telling me you got suspended?” Hansol asked as the shorter boy glared at him.…

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Oscar wilde

    • 1524 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Oscar Wilde had an intriguing childhood, and it certainly affected him his entire life. He was very close to his family, and was on excellent terms with his mother and father, although there was some “sibling rivalry between him and his elder brother, Willie, for their attention” (Ellman 4). He had a particularly powerful relationship with his mother. She was a writer like Wilde, and they had many other things in common. When Wilde was younger, his mother, Jane (also known as Esperanza), would sometimes dress him up in women’s clothing, which many people believed resulted in Wilde’s effeminate personality (Ellman 17). Wilde’s mother would do this because she desperately longed for a daughter. After his younger sister was born, she stopped dressing him in women’s fashion. Wilde’s younger sister, Isola, also maintained a close relationship with Wilde (Ellman 16). However, her life was brief, and she died at the age of nine from meningitis. Oscar never quite got over her death, and he wrote the beautiful poem, Requiescat, in her memory. To add to the tragedy of his sister’s death, “Oscar’s father died on April 19, 1876, leaving the family financially strapped” (Biography). The financial crisis did not affect Oscar too heavily. The lack of a strong male figure in his life could have led to his homosexuality. The events of his earlier years in life impacted an influenced Wilde’s literary work for his entire career.…

    • 1524 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Frustration in marital life sublimated his sexual energy. Re­joined the Mexican war and rose to the rank of a major. In the meantime, his father died and he had to leave the army and then he took to business––he started taking interest in shipping as a. profession. But the agony of his life still gnawed at his heart; his restlessness drove him to seek some other avenues of satisfaction and he studied law and became a judge. Then he took part in politics and became mayor. Meanwhile, the Civil War broke out and he joined the army again where he rose to be a Brigadier General. During all these years he had bitter experiences of marital relations. Before he joined the army during the Mexican war he felt that Christine wanted him to go because she hated him, and that is why he did go. He hoped to be killed in action and thought that perhaps Christine also hoped so. When he came back home he found that Christine had turned to Orin and therefore he turned to Lavinia but because Lavinia was not his wife, he made up his mind to engage himself in worldly affairs and leave Christine alone. That is why he preferred to become a judge and later on a mayor. People called him an “able” man but he felt that he was not able to get what he wanted most in his life––the love of his wife. He was not even able to keep his mind from thinking of what he had lost.…

    • 6102 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Fernando Sorrentino is a notable Argentine writer born in Buenos Aires on November 8, 1942.Sorrentino was married to Alicia Fraiman in 1969 and they have three children: Juan Manuel (1970), and the twins María Angélica and María Victoria (1978). And since October of 2009, they also have a granddaughter, Pilar, Juan Manuel’s daughter. He is been writing short stories for more than thirty – two years. Fernando Sorrentino books for youngsters and youthful grown-ups pretty much have the same attributes at an alternate level. Some of his stories have been incorporated in compilations in Spanish, English and different dialects. From my survey toward his books compilation, I can find that his book has been translated into English, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, Finnish, Hungarian, Polish, Bulgarian, Chinese, and Vietnamese and Tamil version. Not to be shocked though, he had been nominated and won several literary awards (“Goodreads”,n.d). I chose the story My friend Luke by Fernando Sorrentino (translated by Gustavo Artiles and Alex Patterson) as my project paper title because this story is a one in a million, the whole story is describing the character of a guy called Luke where it emphasize on his character on and off the bus, I am ensured that some of reader may perhaps find it Sarcastically Prosaic but I kind of enjoyed it. In this story, there is a character of a nice yet eccentric man; with a decent, polite name, Luke. He is described as the author’s ‘friend’ and the whole story was about character description. The author, Fernando Sorrentino, perfectly provides readers an image of what Luke looked like in the beginning; short, skinny, wears glasses and has a thick moustache. It was also illustrated that Luke was shy, timid and pathetic. The story went on with Luke’s sad and sorry life.. For the project paper, I am researching on the theme identity crisis, rebellion and patient/tolerate which…

    • 3400 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays