Mutants. Since the discovery of their existence they have been regarded with fear, suspicion, often hatred. Across the planet, debate rages. Are mutants the next link in the evolutionary chain or simply a new species of humanity fighting for their share of the world? Either way it is a historical fact: Sharing the world has never been humanity 's defining attribute (Cooper-Dowda).
In this quote by Professor X (short for Xavier, who is the leader of the Marvel’s group of mutants known as the X-Men) from the movie X2: X-Men United, Charles Xavier is referencing the struggle between the mutant race and the majority of society. Oscar Wao, in Junot Diaz’s novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is often times compared to the mutants in Stan …show more content…
In the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Yunior, a Dominican man that is Oscar’s friend, roommate, and one of Lola’s (Oscar’s older sister) ex boyfriends, narrates the story of the Cabral/De Leon family and their plight with a supernatural curse known as fukú; "a curse or doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World"(Danticat 90). Yunior is seemingly all knowing as he tells each story (he narrates the stories of each individual De Leons, besides Lola, as well was Beli’s, Oscar’s mother, birth father and family), something T.S. Miller would define in his journal: “Preternatural Narration And The Lens Of Genre Fiction In Junot Díaz 's ‘The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao’” as a “near-omniscient narrator” (93). Yunior, although he is not present throughout the early years of Oscar’s life, does provide a brief summary of the “Casanova” (11) that Oscar was during his younger years, citing Beli as his source at the beginning of the novel; “You should have seen him, his mother sighed in her Last Days. He was our little Porfirio Rubirosa [A model married to dictator of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina’s …show more content…
Yunior presides over most of the novel, (the section that features Lola and her story is narrated entirely by Lola), and, whereas he seems to know everything that goes on, the reader may notice that Yunior does not put quotation marks around conversations between individuals. In Marvel Comics, the Watchers seem to only make a brief appearance at some point in the story (usually at the beginning), and from there let the characters tell their own story; the reader completely forgets that the entire adventure is being told by an omniscient third party. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, this is not the case. Yunior’s voice is present throughout most of the story. Although he identifies himself as an omniscient being, we know, as well as Yunior, that this is not the case. On many occasions Yunior admits to reading letters sent back and forth between Oscar and Lola, and, regarding a college ‘fling’, he even admits to “reading my roommate’s [Oscar] journal behind his back? Of course I was.”(185). As Yunior begins to draw a conclusion to the novel, he makes an outright comparison to himself as an omniscient narrator when he writes “It’s almost done. Almost over. Only some final things to show you before your
In this quote by Professor X (short for Xavier, who is the leader of the Marvel’s group of mutants known as the X-Men) from the movie X2: X-Men United, Charles Xavier is referencing the struggle between the mutant race and the majority of society. Oscar Wao, in Junot Diaz’s novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is often times compared to the mutants in Stan …show more content…
In the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Yunior, a Dominican man that is Oscar’s friend, roommate, and one of Lola’s (Oscar’s older sister) ex boyfriends, narrates the story of the Cabral/De Leon family and their plight with a supernatural curse known as fukú; "a curse or doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World"(Danticat 90). Yunior is seemingly all knowing as he tells each story (he narrates the stories of each individual De Leons, besides Lola, as well was Beli’s, Oscar’s mother, birth father and family), something T.S. Miller would define in his journal: “Preternatural Narration And The Lens Of Genre Fiction In Junot Díaz 's ‘The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao’” as a “near-omniscient narrator” (93). Yunior, although he is not present throughout the early years of Oscar’s life, does provide a brief summary of the “Casanova” (11) that Oscar was during his younger years, citing Beli as his source at the beginning of the novel; “You should have seen him, his mother sighed in her Last Days. He was our little Porfirio Rubirosa [A model married to dictator of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina’s …show more content…
Yunior presides over most of the novel, (the section that features Lola and her story is narrated entirely by Lola), and, whereas he seems to know everything that goes on, the reader may notice that Yunior does not put quotation marks around conversations between individuals. In Marvel Comics, the Watchers seem to only make a brief appearance at some point in the story (usually at the beginning), and from there let the characters tell their own story; the reader completely forgets that the entire adventure is being told by an omniscient third party. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, this is not the case. Yunior’s voice is present throughout most of the story. Although he identifies himself as an omniscient being, we know, as well as Yunior, that this is not the case. On many occasions Yunior admits to reading letters sent back and forth between Oscar and Lola, and, regarding a college ‘fling’, he even admits to “reading my roommate’s [Oscar] journal behind his back? Of course I was.”(185). As Yunior begins to draw a conclusion to the novel, he makes an outright comparison to himself as an omniscient narrator when he writes “It’s almost done. Almost over. Only some final things to show you before your