Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Translator and the Literary Sense

The translator of the above-mentioned literary praise is of American descent. The novel was written from a fictional viewpoint, but the literary sense behind the plot is about the author’s actual life and how life was under Rafael Trujillo’s tyranny. The latter was the representative of New Jersey, United States of America, who assisted Junot Diaz in instilling Dominican Republic insight (Clark).

Sometimes, the identity that is portrayed by the casts of a single book is not the same as the character that they depict in their personal lives. That is the exact scenario that Junot Diaz; the author of the novel presents in this literary appreciation as he makes Yunior appear as a nerd and easily depicted as a character being cast in one of those movies like Fantastic four or rather The Lord of Rings. “For all his neediness, dude was a pretty considerate roommate (Francis 172).” In so doing, the traits that Yunior has in the book make readers have contradictory thoughts about the personality they initially anticipated him to have as far as their knowledge of him is concerned. Yunior’s split character as portrayed by Diaz is meant to bring out the author’s point in an efficient manner and to make the novel fascinating.

Yunior’s Characterization

In the novel, Diaz uses Yunior to narrate the story. He plays the role in manner that is entirely confusing thus the schism nature. In most of the parts he is present; he does a lot of talking which makes him an easy character to point out from the rest. It is easy to notice the way in which Yunior is tangled up with all the others as he is the talkative type who never seems to keep quiet about anything that comes to his mind. However, it important to note the fact that Yunior’s nature is the best short at recounting the way events unravel in the book (Cantu).

Yunior’s Friendship with Oscar

Diaz explicably shows how close Yunior is to both Oscar and Lola. While Yunior has a lot of friends at his beck and call, Oscar has no friends except for Yunior and Lola. However, the relationship with the latter is a little more different as compared to that which he shares with Yunior. ”I kissed a girl, Yunior, I finally kissed a girl (Francis 305).” In this instant, the author makes Oscar appear as the character who is distant and has difficulty in making friends. In so doing, there has to be a way in which Oscar’s trait can be rectified without him noticing it. This is the reason as to why Diaz creates a relationship between Yunior and Oscar to merge the weaknesses of the latter. If at all Yunior had maintained the character that most people know of him, placing him at this particular point and giving him the aforementioned part would have been somewhat next to impossible.

The Cabral Family

It is common for kids to always talk about their parents. They may not often talk about all of them but their favorite one of the two. As far as the novel is concerned, Yunior rarely talks about his parents and the readers may have the prior assumption that he does not have any. Also, the people reading the text may be of the opinion that he does not have a close relationship with them thus finding it difficult to engage them in the part he plays in the novel (Casielles-Suárez 480). However, that is not the case as it is the author’s choice to make him appear as if he has no parents. The writer explores the various options that may be at his disposal to make the novel as captivating as possible.

In most part of the novel, Yunior talks a lot about the Cabral family. By so doing, it makes it appear as though he is part of the family or rather he has a relationship with the members. He rarely talks about himself and his parents. However, the part where he mentions that his mother is the grandmother to Lola’s daughter is the point where the reader learns of the dire fact that he has a mother (Clark). Take the assumption that he had spent much of his time in the novel talking about his parents; he would not have mentioned the Cabral family because he would be engrossed in making stories about his family at the expense of the Cabral family stories.

In other terms, this would mean that the readers would have very little knowledge about the Cabral family thus making the novel rather monotonous. By talking more about the aforementioned family, he does not forfeit the fact that he has a mother but keeps the flow of the book going by engaging the reader. Diaz uses this to invoke fascination in the text as merely introducing the Cabral’s family without selecting a preferable angle to do it would not have any impact as opposed to the way he chose to do it (Casielles-Suárez 478). Also, he is trying to say that sometimes it is okay for individuals to be selfless as it gives them admirable traits in textual contexts.

Irony

An unostentatious novel is often dull to read, and most people would not have the hearts even to complete the first chapter. Yunior is used in the book as the voice that narrates everything. This way, he is depicted as the person who knows everyone in the novel and how they see to be living their lives (Vargas 11). As a narrator, Yunior informs the readers of all the facts they need to know for them to have a clear-cut and succinct comprehension of the novel. However, the irony jets in where the readers know almost everything there is to know about the characters in the story save for Yunior. It is ironical that the readers know all the facts they know but know almost nothing about the narrator (Vargas 18).

It is as though he is just a shadow in the background of the novel paying the role of the narration. Since the readers know little about Yunior, they would be delving more into the novel to try to understand the narrator from a better perspective (Vargas 17). In so doing they keep reading the novel thus interacting with the views and thoughts that the author had objectively intended to convey to them. Also, when reading the novel, one feels as though they have no idea about Yunior the character and the writer. This makes them infer a lot in his previous writings to get to understand him better and the perception he is trying to convey.

Also, it is quite ironical that Yunior is Oscar’s best friend yet he hates the things he fancies. Some of which include sci-fi Television, Japanese anime, fantasy novels and comic books. The usual thought is that people avoid those how like the things they have no taste for which is not the case with Oscar and Yunior (Vargas 14). Notably, it is confusing that Yunior makes a constant reference to the genres above that he loathes. In so doing, it becomes difficult to understand Yunior and even relate him to his previous publications as he appears to be an entirely different person. This is the type of suspense that makes people want to read more of an author’s writings to confirm their perceptions about him or her. He continually employs nerdy genres in the book but apparently claims that he is not a nerd which is confusing rather than It is a great trick that Diaz uses to influence more of the people to read his books to understand him and the message he is trying to convey to them (Francis 172).

Conclusion

Yunior seems to enjoy the fact that the people cannot count on the law or the lights but rather sex. This is because it is one of the things associated continuously with the Dominican men that just never seem to go away. In the same context, Yunior pauses when telling Oscar’s story to remind the audience that he is not having sex. The main idea Diaz needed to convey and emphasize on is the fact the people often have different thoughts regarding certain perceptions or even topics. The contradictory character as seen through the narrator has only made the novel more involving and captivating to read.

Works Cited

Cantu, Marcel A. ”A Feminist Reading of the Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.“ (2017).

Casielles-Suárez, Eugenia. ”Radical Code-switching in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.“ Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 90.4 (2013): 475-487.

Clark, Christopher W. ”Crossing Borders: Queer Movement and Memory in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Akhil Sharma’s Family Life.“ Queer Subjects and the Contemporary United States (2017).

Francis, Ludanne. ”Look at That Little Macho: Surveillance and Hegemonic Masculinity in Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.“ (2017).

Vargas, Jennifer Harford. ”Dictating a Zafa: The Power of Narrative Form in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.“ MELUS 39.3 (2014): 8-30.