Oscar Wao Character Analysis

In his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz tells a story of a young Dominican male named Oscar de Léon who grows up in New Jersey. He’s given the name, Oscar Wao, by one of the narrators in the novel; more so out of love rather than hate. He’s from a family of immigrants who seem to have been cursed by this curse called the “fukú”. This curse is possibly the cause of every bad encounter Oscar has in his life. Oscar deals with many internal conflicts as well as external conflicts that lead to his downfalls. One of the difficulties that Oscar encounters would be the standards of masculinity that are set by society. He basically goes about trying to fit in, but never seems to accomplish that feat. Díaz uses the point of views …show more content…
Yunior is your “typical Dominican male”. He’s handsome, a ladies man, and muscular; basically a dream guy. Yunior tries to help Oscar by getting him to lose weight and tries to get him be more confidant in himself. Oscar doesn’t cooperate and his stubborn ways hinders Yunior from accomplishing his goal. Oscar as Yunior presented, “wore his nerdiness like a Jedi wore his light saber” (Díaz 19). Readers find out that Oscar is a huge nerd. Simultaneously, they find out that Yunior is one as well. [Oscar] “Could write in Elvish, could speak Chakosa, could differentiate between a Slan, a Dorsai, and Lensman in acute detail, knew more about the Marvel Universe than Stan Lee” (Díaz 19). Only a nerd would know what the previous statement meant. Yunior is a closeted nerd unlike Oscar who’s open with his nerdiness. Yunior wants to live up to the standard of a typical Dominican male because he would lose his “rep” amongst society if he were as open about his nerdiness; he would be Oscar. This is another example of how the standards of society are harmful. A lot of men cannot be who they truly are because, they’re afraid of