Blinded By Love: The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

Finding true love is a goal many strive to achieve, and they often actively seek to find their soulmate or “the one.” Many television shows and novels frequently portray falling in love as a wonderful experience that will always have a fairy-tale ending. While love can bring joy and meaning into one’s life, it can become so pervasive that it will begin to cloud one’s judgement. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz highlights the detrimental effects of love, which contrasts the usual extraordinary depictions of love in other works.

In the novel, Beli falls deeply in love with the Gangster, who symbolizes a new beginning after her tumultuous affair with Jack Pujols. Beli yearns for a chance to fall in love and to be loved back, and her relationship with the Gangster provides her with this opportunity. When Beli reveals to the Gangster that she is pregnant with his child, he tells her to terminate the pregnancy.

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“But like lovergirls everywhere, she had heard only what she wanted to hear” (Díaz 137). While Beli is enamored by her future with the Gangster, their seemingly picture-perfect future together is shattered when the Gangster reveals he is married to none other than Trujillo’s sister. Even as Beli is kidnapped and beaten in the canefields due to her affair, she still longs for the Gangster in hopes of being rescued. Beli is not the only victim of love in the novel; her children Oscar and Lola also become controlled by their respective relationships with Ana and Ybón, and Aldo.

Love can cause one to become blind to the truth, and it can compel one to make reckless decisions.

Oscar Wao is arguably the most blinded by love out of all the characters in the novel: he becomes obsessed with finding a significant other, and he almost always falls in love with any woman who gives him the slightest bit of attention. Ana Obregón catches Oscar’s eye at their SAT prep class, and without fail, he falls in love with her. Despite the fact that Oscar and Ana frequently hang out together after class, Oscar’s love remains one-sided, and he keeps his feelings secret. Oscar is aware of Ana’s love for Manny, but “he was totally and irrevocably in love with Ana. [...] It [Oscar’s feelings] had the density of a dwarf-motherfucking-star and at times he was a hundred percent sure it would drive him mad” (Díaz 44, 45). Oscar’s love for Ana does indeed drive him mad after she sobs to him about her boyfriend; instead of listening or trying to resolve the problem as any level headed person would, Oscar “stuck its [his uncle’s gun] impressive snout down the front of his pants and proceeded to stand in front of Manny’s building almost the entire night” (Díaz 46). When Oscar resorts to potentially shooting Manny, he sees himself as Ana’s savior; Oscar regularly listens to Ana’s complaints about her boyfriend, and he feels that killing Manny would be the best way to solve Ana’s problems. Getting rid of Manny would mean that Ana would be single, and Oscar could get out of the “Let’s-Be-Friends Vortex” (Díaz 41) and fill Manny’s spot. In Oscar’s view, Ana is his only chance of love and happiness after eighteen years of being unsuccessful with girls, and he is determined to use any means possible to knock down the obstacles to his happiness. But Oscar—set on his quest to find love—blindly ignores the fact that Ana does not see him as a potential lover. As a result, Oscar intrudes into Ana and Manny’s relationship, and he makes a rash decision out of his supposed love for Ana.

Another character who becomes blinded by love is Lola, who runs away from her home in order to live with her boyfriend, Aldo. Before she meets Aldo, Lola has a strained relationship with Beli; they fight frequently, and Lola ignores her mother’s demands as Beli lashes out at her. Lola reaches her breaking point when she tells Beli she wished she would die, and she leaves her home without a trace. For a moment, Lola feels joy in running away: “I had run away, so I was happy! Happy!” (Díaz 64). From Lola’s perspective, moving in with Aldo is a ticket to freedom from her mother, and it allows her to leave behind her negative memories with Beli. Aldo represents an escape for Lola; moving in with him would allow her to have a fresh start without the burden of her family. But Lola’s fantasy is short-lived when she actually begins living with Aldo. Lola reminisces how “it was like the stupidest thing I ever did” after she realizes how life with Aldo is not as freeing as she had imagined it to be (Díaz 64). When she lives with Aldo, Lola suppresses her true feelings toward her family. Deep down, Lola wants to mend her relationship with her family: she “kept waiting to run into [her] family posting up flyers of [her] on the boardwalk” (Díaz 65). While Lola puts up a rebellious front against her family, she truly cares for them, and she longs for them to care about her in the same way. Instead of attempting to make amends with her family members, Lola is blinded by the prospect of a better life with Aldo, which causes her to stifle her true emotions.