The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar DiazNarrative, Nerds and Masculinity

Junot DiazBorn Dec 3, 1968 in Santo DomingoImmigrated to New Jersey in 1974Completed BA English at Rutgers in 1992MFA from Cornell in 1995Drown published in 1996Becomes professor of English at MIT in 2003Oscar Wao published in 2007

wins Pullitzer in 2008

The De Leon FamilyAbelard Luis

Cabral&

Socorro

Jacquelyn Astrid Hypatia Belicia (Beli)

La Inca Jack Pujols

The Gangster

De Leon

Oscar Lola

Isis

Yunior

Cuban Reuben

Narrative StructureChapter Title Setting NarratorPart 1: Prologue Yunior1. Ghetto Nerd at the End of the World, 1974-1987

New York Yunior narrating Oscar’s youth

2. Wildwood, 1982 – 1985 Jersey Shore

Lola

3. The 3 Heartbreaks of Belicia Cabral, 1955-1962

DR Yunior narrating Beli’s youth

4. Sentimental Education, 1988-1992

Rutgers Yunior narrating college with Oscar

Part 2 DR Lola5. Poor Abelard, 1944-1946

DR Yunior narrating Abelard’s life

6. Land of the Lost, 1992-1995

NY & DR Yunior narrating Oscar’s adulthood

Part 3: Chs 7, 8, & Epilogue

NY & DR Yunior narrating Oscar’s last days

“Of what import are brief, nameless lives…

to Galactus?”Who is Galactus?Whose lives are brief and nameless?Of what significance is the life of a single person in the face of chaos and destruction?

“either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation”

Second stanza of Derek Walcott’s “Schooner Flight”Derek Walcott poet of Santa LuciaWho is Shabine?Why must Shabine either be nobody or a nation? Could the same dichotomy apply to Oscar?Significance of epigraphs:

Destructive force and legacies of colonialismThe tension between individual and community – to what extent can the story of a single individual convey the story of an entire community?

PrologueWhat is fuku?Why are we all its children?How are Trujillo and fuku related?“What more sci-fi than Santo Domingo? What more fantasy than the Antilles?... What more fuku?” (OW 1)What is zafa? How is the story of Oscar “a zafa of sorts” (7)?

Ghetto Nerd at the End of the World

What is Oscar’s character like?What is the “typical/normal” Dominican male supposed to be like?

Why can’t Oscar fulfill that norm?

What is the the effect of “love” on Oscar and his family?How does love in OW compare/contrast with love in Sula?

WildwoodHow does Oscar’s childhood compare/contrast with Lola’s?What are the differences between the expectations of a Dominican son versus those of a Dominican daughter?“She was my Old World Dominican mother and I was her only daughter, the one she had raised up herself with the help of nobody, which meant it was her duty to keep me crushed under her heel” (55).

Why would Lola’s mother believe this is her duty?

Why does Lola believe that we can’t judge her for how she treated her mother (55)?Why can Lola only “begin” when La Inca starts the story of her grandfather and mother?