Through the conjunctive analyzation of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne a unifying theme between these two works emerges and the exploration of the ways that these authors impose this specific concept in their respective works leads to a larger understanding of these two novels. Specifically, the unifying theme of the individual within society permeates these two works and creates parallels between them. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao this theme targets Oscar de León, a man maturing within Dominican culture and society, and The Scarlet Letter focuses on Hester Prynne and her role within Puritan society. Furthermore, these protagonists lead their lives as social
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Throughout the novel characters bombard Oscar with the fact that he does not act like a typical Dominican male, chastising him for his looks, his interests, and his behavior. His sister even warns Oscar that he will “die a virgin unless [he] start[s] changing”, emphasizing that the stereotypical Dominican male is very sexually active (25). Not only his family, but his friends Al and Miggs come to think Oscar as a social outsider, and Oscar realizes this truth when “his fucked-up comic-book-reading, role-playing-game-loving, no-sports-playing friends were embarrassed by him”, solely because they both had girlfriends and Oscar did not (29). In Dominican culture, which functions under a broader culture of machismo present in Latin America, ideal men possess typically masculine traits, and the absence of these traits in Oscar’s characterization allows the other characters in this novel to degrade him, turning him into a pariah. Moreover, the narrator, Yunior, expresses this concept blatantly to the reader blatantly and early on in the novel, and this leads to reader …show more content…
Womanizing, sexist, and ultimately one of the most hyper-masculine characters in the novel, Yunior illustrates his views on Dominican masculinity early to the reader, and as a result the reader normalizes his viewpoint– creating reader bias. Unlike the narration of The Scarlet Letter, Yunior injects his own opinions and commentary into the narrative. Although having this Dominican narrator may help readers understand Dominican culture better and the role of individuals within society, ultimately readers may have a harder time formulating their own opinions about Oscar and result to Yunior’s narrative. This concept presents itself even on the first page of the novel as Yunior describes Oscar as “never [having] much luck with the females (how very un-Dominican of him)” (11). This last anecdote about what Dominican identity is that Yunior illustrates to the reader casts Oscar as the black and influences the reader’s perception of Oscar. Oscar’s virginity, to most readers a normal occurrence in society, casts him as a pariah to readers because Yunior describes that this is Oscar’s place in society. The reader’s reaction to the characters and events of the novel gets filtered through Yunior’s point of view, and as a result readers view Oscar as unfulfilling his role as
Throughout the novel characters bombard Oscar with the fact that he does not act like a typical Dominican male, chastising him for his looks, his interests, and his behavior. His sister even warns Oscar that he will “die a virgin unless [he] start[s] changing”, emphasizing that the stereotypical Dominican male is very sexually active (25). Not only his family, but his friends Al and Miggs come to think Oscar as a social outsider, and Oscar realizes this truth when “his fucked-up comic-book-reading, role-playing-game-loving, no-sports-playing friends were embarrassed by him”, solely because they both had girlfriends and Oscar did not (29). In Dominican culture, which functions under a broader culture of machismo present in Latin America, ideal men possess typically masculine traits, and the absence of these traits in Oscar’s characterization allows the other characters in this novel to degrade him, turning him into a pariah. Moreover, the narrator, Yunior, expresses this concept blatantly to the reader blatantly and early on in the novel, and this leads to reader …show more content…
Womanizing, sexist, and ultimately one of the most hyper-masculine characters in the novel, Yunior illustrates his views on Dominican masculinity early to the reader, and as a result the reader normalizes his viewpoint– creating reader bias. Unlike the narration of The Scarlet Letter, Yunior injects his own opinions and commentary into the narrative. Although having this Dominican narrator may help readers understand Dominican culture better and the role of individuals within society, ultimately readers may have a harder time formulating their own opinions about Oscar and result to Yunior’s narrative. This concept presents itself even on the first page of the novel as Yunior describes Oscar as “never [having] much luck with the females (how very un-Dominican of him)” (11). This last anecdote about what Dominican identity is that Yunior illustrates to the reader casts Oscar as the black and influences the reader’s perception of Oscar. Oscar’s virginity, to most readers a normal occurrence in society, casts him as a pariah to readers because Yunior describes that this is Oscar’s place in society. The reader’s reaction to the characters and events of the novel gets filtered through Yunior’s point of view, and as a result readers view Oscar as unfulfilling his role as