Junot Díaz

Richard Shang Mrs. McQuay English 11 May 15 2017 Marginalization in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Time and time again people see how marginalization of a group can create psychological and emotional problems such as anxiety, fear, and depression. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz explores these specific issues through the brief life of Oscar de Leon and his family. The repeated marginalization of Oscar and his his family causes him to express self-doubt and depression, eventually becoming and more isolated, displaying how the effects of marginalization can affect one person. Oscar from the start, even in the Dominican Republic, was marginalized. Dominican men have a reputation of being masculine, being able to charm…

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the tragic story of the young Oscar de Leon. As the author Junot Diaz puts it, “Our hero was not one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about---he wasn’t no home-run hitter or a fly bachatero, not a playboy with a million hots on his jock.”(Diaz 11). Poor Oscar was just a pawn in this play between good and evil, light and dark, the fuku and the zafa. Oscar’s entire identity was the product of his family’s curse, destined to live a short,…

Junot Diaz’s use of mental health issues a key part of the novel. If mental health is a taboo subject in the United States, it is ten times that in Latin American countries. Starting with Abelard’s wife, Socorro, she deals with severe anxiety. The narrator explains that Soccoro’s father, who would be Oscar’s great-grandfather, witnessed the death of his father at the hands of the state police. This caused him to become an alcoholic and Socorro to be “anxious” and she developed “the habit of…

In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz describes the coming of age story of Oscar, the struggle of Oscar’s family that has gone on for generations, and the Dominican diaspora. In doing so, Diaz argues that the Dominican Diaspora and other Diasporas face immense struggles in the United States. Such struggle can be described by transnationalism, which “considers the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multistranded social relations that link together their societies of…

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…

In the book in Drown by Junot Diaz he wrote ten different stories and it focus on how immigrants from Dominican Republic travel to the United States to have a better opportunity for their family and most importantly achieving the American Dream. The time period of the story is during the 1980’s and it takes place in Santo Domingo. The protagonist Yunior who tells his a story about his family migrating to the United States and growing up with no father. Throughout the chapters we see…

In the story The Money, by Junot Dìaz, I see the main idea as centering on the theme of trust. Throughout the narrative, that theme seems to be the component that links the characters together and runs through their relationships with each other. The mother saved up money to send to her parents and they trusted her to send them the money. She also trusted her kids with the knowledge of where the money was kept, and the boy trusted his friends with the knowledge of the money being in his house.…

“Invierno” by Junot Diaz is the story of a family: a discontent mother, a brother that hides his actions behind those of his sibling, an abusive and controlling father, and the protagonist of the story, Yunior, the one sheltered by his father and forbidden from exploring his surroundings. Yunior, his brother Rafa and their mother were just brought into the states from Santo Domingo. Both Rafa and the narrator are unfamiliar with the man they referred to as “Papi.” Once they had arrived to their…

In Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the author illustrates a society of internalized prejudice and racism. His representation of this society is symbolized by the relationship between Belí and her daughter Lola; a mother- daughter relationship of control and resentment that creates a microcosm of the societal pressures and values of the Dominican Republic. On pages 208-209 of Oscar Wao, Lola narrates her life experiences: her conflicts with her mother, her discontent with her…

Reading this passage stood out to me personally that is why I chose this passage. Acknowledging numerous individuals who are precisely comparable to Oscar Wao. The passage that correlates to a majority of people living in The United States, including individuals from throughout the world. In my eyes, Oscar Wao was a typical adolescent who received judgment due to his appearance and his hobbies. Associates will not understand your favorite hobbies while reaching a particular age. Children would…