The Themes of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar is one of the most exciting stories ever told in history. The story is about Oscar Wao a ghetto nerd based in Peterson village in New Jersey. The tale narrates about a love issue between Oscar and a lady who does not appreciate the love Oscar has for her by reciprocating it. The story had been published seven years before its narration. It narrates the challenges Oscar’s family is facing as a result of interfering with the views of Rafael Trujillo who is a vicious dictator in Dominica.

The aspects of the characters in the story are said to have brought a lot of challenges to the future generations in the family.

According to Yunior who is one of the narrators of the story says that the family suffering was brought in by fukú which is referred to as the mother of curses. The curse comes in after Oscar’s mother went against the famous dictator in their area.

Get quality help now

RhizMan

Verified writer

Proficient in: Free Essays

4.9 (247)

“ Rhizman is absolutely amazing at what he does . I highly recommend him if you need an assignment done ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

The family was unable to bear a male offspring in the future generations. The narrator says that the curse is the primary cause of the death of Oscar’s family members and suffering witnessed in the family. It is also believed that the same curse drives Oscar to mad love in life a mistake that makes his short life very miserable. In our essay, we shall analyses all the themes evident in the story as narrated by the author.

The story is full of Themes that revolve around matters of family and personal life — for instance, the theme of violence.

In the story, the subject appears in different categories running from individual to massive scale. It is also in the level of family and the government at large. The narrator of the story alludes that violence is Dominica is part and parcel of the people cultures in the area. This means that violence is not a big deal to them and they expect it anytime. The relationship between Lola and Belicia is an example of violence in familial scale. Although Lola is not happy with the force between her and Belicia, she adheres to the fact that it is the only way she can be disciplined. The two ladies have a history of violence throughout the story. At her teenage life, Belicia undergoes several violence including the torture by her kidnappers at the abuse from her foster family.

The torture and imprisonment of Abelard is the first instance in the story that marks the begging of violence between the families and the government. The humiliation of Abelard by Trujillo government brings in the aspect of personal and government violence in the story. The regime of Trujillo is known for its intimidation and violent way of ruling. During the regime, violence becomes an accepted vice that is in the bloodstream of Dominican residence. Oscar who lives a miserable life portrays the legacy in the history of the family of violence. His death as a result of a violent beating in the cane field is a direct reflection of the earlier experience of Belicia. The author of the story uses this theme in the story to show the possible effects of violence on personal and government levels. Violence at this level is capable of changing the culture of a society, and the consequence of the violence is bound to every person in society.

Another theme evident in the story is the theme of Unrequited Love. In our novel, most of the character faces a challenge to experience their happiness to their love partners — for instance, the case of Oscar. Love is associated with some consequential issues such as loneliness, heartbreaks, and violence to some extent. As a result of love, Oscar’s family tries to trace the grouse root of the family curse by intervening the case of Abelard for keeping the daughter of Trujillo. A desire that Jacqueline doesn’t reciprocate in the fight for her lover. In their family, Oscar’s sister is the first one to have that kind of life which is later adopted by Oscar. This type of love is seen to cause heartbreaks to both characters throughout the story as narrated by Yunior. Belicia experiences this type of love on different occasion. For example, while in school, she develops unrequited love for Jack. A mistake that leads to her expulsion from the school and to some extent the community disowned her. She is also beaten and warned if she continuous to fall in love with the community Gangsters.

The life of Oscar is known for having unreciprocated love. This makes him develop a mindset that no woman is ready to have him for love issue other than the normal friendship. This causes a challenge to Oscar to the extent that he uses extreme and vital measures to experience his feelings to ladies. His risky measures to experience love later leads to his execution. Oscar had received a threat over his life, but due to love he had for Ybón, he returned to Santo Domingo to try his luck. The relationship between Lola and Yunior is another case of unrequited love evident in the story. Throughout the story, the two try their level best to make things work. However, at some point, Yunior develops a belief he can never make Lola happy for the fact that he believes he is not the man Lola need her life to be satisfied. This inters him from showing the best of his feelings to Lola. In a statement, Díaz the author questions people if they can have control over love feelings when trying to express them to a person they love.

The mother-daughter relationship is another theme portrayed throughout the story. The cycle of mother-little girl connections echoes down the ages of the de León family. Starting with La Inca's safeguard of Belicia from her temporary family, mothers and her kids are standing out from one another. Even though Belicia is appreciative to La Inca for sparing her and giving her a warm, steady home, Belicia can't resist the urge to feel anxious and caught in her condition. She longs to escape and starts to defy La Inca after her removal from secondary school effectively. She can't see that La Inca needs just the best for her.

Belicia and Lola additionally have an adversarial relationship, and Lola portrays Belicia as 'my Old World Dominican mother who implied that it was her obligation to keep Lola pulverized under her heel.' Their relationship features the pressures intrinsic in their social childhoods since Lola has been increasingly presented to American impacts and family culture. Belicia is strict and oppressive and retains friendship for Lola. However, Lola, in the long run, comes to comprehend it is the primary way Belicia realizes how to express her affection. Lola appears to have acquired Belicia's feeling of eagerness and defiance, which places them into a struggle as a result of their similitudes. It's reasonable, in any case, that they profoundly adore one another, and once Lola finds out about Belicia's adolescence from La Inca, she starts to comprehend Belicia's inspirations better.

Cultural Identity is the last theme evident in the story. Most characters in the in the story do not associate themselves with specific social originality but multiple cultures throughout the novel. For instance, the case of Oscar. The author says that Oscar is denied by every culture he tries to associate himself with that is either American or Dominican. Through his life, he never adheres to customs of any culture he is associated with. For example, in the novel, we are told that boys and men in Dominican cultures frequently provoke Oscar for not adopting the male stereotypes of their religion. In American culture, his funny character and science fiction makes him different from his American age mates.