Throughout his storytelling, Junot Díaz conflates magical realist fantasy with the factual truth of Dominican history to dismantle the dichotomy between imagination and reason. He shows the reader that racial categories are affirmed and maintained through hateful colonial fantasies by blurring the lines between fact and fiction in the novel. His use of historical moments demonstrates how the characters live in a lingering framework of coloniality—that which is sustained by our inability to picture another world. He continually points to the blank pages of a book to demonstrate how sharing alternative stories is the key to creating another, better reality. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a testimony to the power of fantasy—Díaz reveals
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Through Belicia’s love trajectory, we also see her turning to fantasy to challenge anti-black racial systems. Beli’s speculation of her future as a romanticist fairytale stems from her dissatisfaction with life in the Dominican Republic under Trujillo’s dictatorship. Díaz explains that, “where she wanted to escape to she could not tell you. I guess it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been a princess in a high castle or if her dead parent’s former estate, the florious Casa Hatüey, had been miraculously restored form Trujillo’s Omega Effect. She would have wanted out (80).” At this stage in the novel Beli struggles to conceptualize an alternative reality outside of the pseudo-European dream world, but still, her wild imagination allows her to escape her current situation. Díaz sheds light on what it is Belicia is trying to escape:
From what was east to enumerate: the bakery, her school, dull-ass Baní, sharing a bed with her madre, the inability to buy the dresses she wanted, having to wait until fifteen to straighten her hair, the impossible expectations of La Inca, the fact that her long-gone parents had died when she was one, the whispers that Trujillo had done it, those first years of her life when she’d been an orphan, the …show more content…
One cannot just reject the fukú. In order for it’s power to dissolve, it must be replaced by a better fantasy. In this instance, she resolves strength from her pain and anger. Díaz explains the power of the fantastical in another narrative pause, “remember: Dominicans are Caribbean and therefore have an extraordinary tolerance for extreme phenomena. How else could we have survived what we have survived (149)?” It is in this example where the reader really sees how essential it is to the survival of oppressed peoples that one learns to transform pain into
Through Belicia’s love trajectory, we also see her turning to fantasy to challenge anti-black racial systems. Beli’s speculation of her future as a romanticist fairytale stems from her dissatisfaction with life in the Dominican Republic under Trujillo’s dictatorship. Díaz explains that, “where she wanted to escape to she could not tell you. I guess it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been a princess in a high castle or if her dead parent’s former estate, the florious Casa Hatüey, had been miraculously restored form Trujillo’s Omega Effect. She would have wanted out (80).” At this stage in the novel Beli struggles to conceptualize an alternative reality outside of the pseudo-European dream world, but still, her wild imagination allows her to escape her current situation. Díaz sheds light on what it is Belicia is trying to escape:
From what was east to enumerate: the bakery, her school, dull-ass Baní, sharing a bed with her madre, the inability to buy the dresses she wanted, having to wait until fifteen to straighten her hair, the impossible expectations of La Inca, the fact that her long-gone parents had died when she was one, the whispers that Trujillo had done it, those first years of her life when she’d been an orphan, the …show more content…
One cannot just reject the fukú. In order for it’s power to dissolve, it must be replaced by a better fantasy. In this instance, she resolves strength from her pain and anger. Díaz explains the power of the fantastical in another narrative pause, “remember: Dominicans are Caribbean and therefore have an extraordinary tolerance for extreme phenomena. How else could we have survived what we have survived (149)?” It is in this example where the reader really sees how essential it is to the survival of oppressed peoples that one learns to transform pain into