In the novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, the main character Oscar Wao struggles with obesity and finding love throughout his life. His misfortunes are blamed on a curse that haunts him and his family. Like Oscar and his family, real life people struggle with the same issues as they do. The author addresses real life issues while incorporating a cultural history and background. Although the readers of The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao may not all relate to having a Dominican family, the author addresses issues readers can associate with such as struggling with love and family.
The Fuku curse is a historical curse that dates back hundreds of years back into Oscar’s family. Throughout the novel, the narrator spends a great deal of time trying to convince the readers that every bad detail that happens in Oscar’s family’s life is due to the Fuku curse. All through the novel, Oscar struggles with with finding love. As a child, he was a playboy and flirted with all the girls but as he grew up, he became a nerd and had trouble finding a girlfriend. Just like Oscar, many people struggle with finding love in their lives. His first love is named Ana Obregon and she leads him on and then returns to a relationship with her abusive ex-boyfriend. In college he falls for another girl, who yet again has rejected him. Oscar responds by trying to kill himself by jumping off a train, but he does not succeed. After college, he goes on a trip with his sister and mother to the Dominican Republic where he falls in love with a prostitute named Ybon. Unfortunately Ybon has a boyfriend who is the captain of the police force. Everyone warned Oscar not to see Ybon but Oscar had believed he finally found true love. Eventually Ybon’s boyfriend finds Oscar and badly beats him up resulting in Oscar’s mom sending him back to the States. But, Oscar can not seem to get Ybon out of his head and asks his best friend for money to fly back to the Dominican Republic to see her. Ybon’s boyfriend then finds him and kills him.
The misfortune with love does not only affect Oscar, but other people in his family too. His mother for example had trouble with men her whole life, starting in grade school. His mother, Beli, finally got the boy she liked and they were have constant sex in the broom closet at school. When they got caught, he blamed it on Beli even though he promised to marry her and she did nothing wrong. The boy was then shipped off to military school. Beli later on meets another man referred to as “The Gangster”. No man had ever appreciated her the way he did and she ended up falling in love with him and pregnant with his child. As it turned out, The Gangster was married and his wife sent people to go and beat her near to death and she ended up losing her baby.
Like all families, there is conflict and tension between the members of the Wao family. Beli, the mother of Oscar and Lola, had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Lola responds by becoming goth and shaving her head all while taking care of her sick mother. The cancer eventually goes away but at dinner one night, Beli announced it had come back and Lola just asks her to pass the salt in response which causes Beli to hit Lola. Lola sees this as a chance to be free from her controlling mother once and for all and runs away to live with her boyfriend. Things were not going well at her boyfriend’s house, so Lola call Oscar to meet her at coffee shop where she sees her mother and uncle waiting for her. Lola runs and her mother chases her and falls, Lola rushes to help her but it turned out her mother had faked the fall. The members of the Wao family all went through many unfortunate events in their lives but they do not share them with each other. No one likes to talk about their past with each other which can lead to tension in a family.
Even though the novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is relatable mostly to Dominican readers, there are still aspects of the book that non-Dominican readers can relate to such as the struggles with love and family.