Love and Home and Generations; Said’s Exile Consciousness in Junot Díaz’s “Wildwood” The exile consciousness centers around the feeling of alienation from a cultural and nationalistic origin, as Edward Said writes about in his essay “Reflections on Exile”. From this perspective, Junot Díaz’s short story “Wildwood” becomes a narrative fixated on the plurality of an exile, their travails, strategies, and accomplishments. Belicia “de León” ’s personality has the jealous characteristic inherent in being an exile, as she attempts to restrict her daughter, Lola, the protagonist, to orient around her and retain maintain a clear boundary, isolating them both from most society, she escaped to the U.S. in a distinct refugee-like manner. Paradoxically,
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By doing this, she contrasts the value of her own body from Lola’s and to distance her from oncoming changes, as confronting this neighbor would brought. That she won’t confront him when she’s willing to fight police officers displays a deep and indirect rebellion against the government officers in Santo Domingo who thrust her out of her home. This is emblematic of Said’s argument about the paradox of exile; Belicia resembles these officers when she continues to call Lola “fea” or “idiota”, and he asserts, “Of these, the state—or more accurately, statism…since worship of the state tends to supplant all other human bonds” (146). To her mother, Lola doesn’t belong to either of her love nor ties to identity. The “hold” Belicia has on Lola through the mother-daughter bond, however, endures and works to make the alienation much more …show more content…
What is intriguing being that the details of how she looks with the makeup and how her is styled isn’t present, thereby there isn’t a specific scheme to which “Dominican” as an identity is. The focus is on Lola’s vision of herself; she’s subject to several moments of loss and the intuitive sense of change that she both trusts and is wary of. She gains another home, or place to settle when she’s sent off to Santo Domingo, but the sense
By doing this, she contrasts the value of her own body from Lola’s and to distance her from oncoming changes, as confronting this neighbor would brought. That she won’t confront him when she’s willing to fight police officers displays a deep and indirect rebellion against the government officers in Santo Domingo who thrust her out of her home. This is emblematic of Said’s argument about the paradox of exile; Belicia resembles these officers when she continues to call Lola “fea” or “idiota”, and he asserts, “Of these, the state—or more accurately, statism…since worship of the state tends to supplant all other human bonds” (146). To her mother, Lola doesn’t belong to either of her love nor ties to identity. The “hold” Belicia has on Lola through the mother-daughter bond, however, endures and works to make the alienation much more …show more content…
What is intriguing being that the details of how she looks with the makeup and how her is styled isn’t present, thereby there isn’t a specific scheme to which “Dominican” as an identity is. The focus is on Lola’s vision of herself; she’s subject to several moments of loss and the intuitive sense of change that she both trusts and is wary of. She gains another home, or place to settle when she’s sent off to Santo Domingo, but the sense