Sunday, December 19, 2010

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (pg. 269-335)

Summary

Summary
At the beginning of the last section of part two, Oscar is still living in a world of misery by his curse called fuku. This whole last section is from the point of view of Junior. Lola was pregnant but aborted because Junior was Cheating on her. Oscar looses twenty pounds at a point and feels good enough to start fresh in D.R. Oscar, Beli, and Lola all go visit La Inca and reunite in the Capital called Santo Domingo. Oscar decides to stay the whole summer there instead of going back two weeks later with Lola because he falls in love with Ybon Pimentel, a prostitute. He starts talking to Ybon at a coffee shop and finds out she’s middle aged. Oscar goes to Ybon's house constantly and La Inca and Belicia get mad that Oscar is talking to a prostitute. Oscar and Ybon Grow really close as friends, and she like him but they never got intimate with each other. Next, Ybon gets a boyfriend who is a cop known as "El Capitan," this aggressive man claims he wants to meet Oscar and actually shoots at La Inca's house. Ybon kisses Oscar for the first time(dream come true)in her car when she’s drunk, then two policemen tell her to step out. The captain beats him out of pity and threatens him. His two cop friends take him to a canfield to beat him up to death. Like Belicia, the mongoose leads Oscar to a cab driver that saves him. Oscar lives, as Beli and La Inca are in the hospital room they remember the coincidence of the situation. Three days after, Oscar’s is better and Belicia tells him that he is leaving back to Paterson. Oscar slowly accepts it and starts to believe in the fuku. He looks for Ybon, and she finally comes also with black eyes and tells him that they can NEVER talk again. He returns home and his mom doesn't talk to him, he is depressed over his heart brake.
Part three, Junior starts talking about his relationship going down the road with Lola. Oscar tells him that he is deciding to move away and start a new life, so He asks him for money. Instead, he goes to D.R and follows Ybon everywhere asking her to leave. Oscar follows Ybon for 27 days, when he doesn't follow her is writing letters about his experience with her. Lola even fly's down to tell him to leave, and Ybon tells him constantly to leave but he doesn’t listen. One day, El Capitan’s friends get a hold of him and beat him up again, they again take him to the canfields. Oscar tries to convince the two men that what they’re doing is wrong but they don't listen. They burned him, Clives the same taxi driver picks up his body. Beli dies ten months later from breast cancer. Ybon never changes, Justice didn't occur with the cops, and La Inca moves back to Bani. Oscar's death, even after Junior and Lola don’t work out. Lola gets married and has a girl. Even after five years Oscar dies, Junior dreams about him. Junior decides to change and becomes a teacher and gets married. Lola besides having a daughter, travels the world. Junior hopes that Lola's daughter will finally put and end to fuku. Letters arrive to Junior that was from Oscar after, except for the last one. They include information about how he managed to escape with Ybon from the capital and they finally get together.
Quote
"Love was a rare thing, easily confused with a million other things, and if anybody knew this to be true it was him. He told them about Ybon and the way he loved her and how much they had risked...because of her love...if they killed him they would probably feel nothing..." (Diaz 321)

Reaction
This quotation occurs when Oscar is taken to the canfield and El Capitan's cop friends are about to kill him. It shows Oscar's hopeless romantic side till the end. The narrator starts out at the beginning of the book explaining Oscar's love for love. The book and Oscar's life ends with Oscar speaking of his love for someone. This shows Diaz poetic way of writing and how he makes his story comes full circle and makes perfect sense at the end. Besides the whole story showing Verisimilitude, "love was a rare thing" shows the way things society was at the time, and also foreshadows Junior and Lola's breakup further on. Oscar was born and dies a lover, the irony in this is that the character is expected to change into a Don Juan, but he dies a lover.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (pg. 205-267)


Summary
   Part two of the book starts out with Lola, back when she is still a teenager and in Dominican Republic living with La Inca. La Inca makes Lola go back to Paterson, New Jersey, this means that Lola has to go back to her abusive mother and has to leave her happiness behind in DR. Before she leaves, Lola breaks up with her boyfriend, and then prostitutes herself to her friend’s father, who gives her two thousand dollars in return. Lola's mom arrives in Banilejos to pick her up after seven months of not seeing her and treats her the same bad way. Lola's older narrator voice jumps in and explains to the reader that she later realized that, that was just the way her mom is. The reason why she sold herself was to get money in order to escape to another country but instead her old boyfriend Max dies and she gives his family that money. She then sadly goes back to Paterson. In the Next Chapter, Oscar’s Grandfather called Abelard Luis Cabral, a doctor life story, and the starter of the family curse called fuku by talking badly about Trujillo. Trujillo is Dominican Republic's evil dictator according to the details given. Abelard was a wealthy man and was extremely intelligent, he had a wife named a Socorro and two daughters named Jackylene and Astrid. Also, he attended Trujillo's events but wasn't really close to him, he always tried to avoid him because he knew Trujillo would be interested in his good looking daughter. The countries decorum at the time was that a man had to offer his daughter to Trujillo no matter what and Cabral was against that. Trujillo even had spies that worked on just finding girls for him and if a man didn't give up his daughter or wife they were charged for treason. Cabral had taken a huge risk to not take his daughters and wife to these events.  He only told three people about his insecurity such as his wife, his mistress, and his bestfriend. At a presidential gathering, Trujillo asks Cabral if he has a wife, and humiliates him by admitting that he thought Abelard was gay. Trujillo then tells Abelard that he heard that he has a pretty daughter and Cabral responds by telling him that if he likes mustaches then that is a yes. The next presidential event, the invitation states clearly to him and his whole family. This makes him become depressive and too attentive with his daughters and ends up not taking them. Four weeks later, Cabral gets arrested for slander and gross calumny against the president. He had gotten drunk and said a joke about the president’s secret assassinations and claiming these murders as natural catastrophes. His mistress Lydia almost gets pregnant and Abelard Considers marrying her, but he loves his family too much. When he gets arrested he was put in a jail cell were he was stripped of his clothes and made to sleep in the bathroom because the guard lies to his jail mates and says that Abelard is a gay communist. He soon finds out that Socorro became pregnant with there last daughter and gets sentences for 18 years, he starts to believe that Trujillo put a curse on there family. He supposable didn’t get arrested for a joke or because of his daughter but he started writing a book about Trujillo’s supernatural state and powers. No evidence of his had written work or books remained. His last daughter, named Belicia had a dark skin complexion, which was at the time a family omen. The reader is left to decide whether he believes in the curse or not. Next, Socorro kills herself, Lydia's body was never found, his bestfriend who was a spy and ratted Abelard out became a millionaire, Jacky kills herself, and Astrid gets shot in church. Abelard dies 14 years after on an electrical chair. Belicia was taken care of Toila a servant, nobody wanted her because she was dark Socorro’s distant family took her and they didn’t get a reward for it so they gave her to another distant family who went on vacation and they came back without a baby. La Inca hears about Belicia years later and adopts her. Belicia had been abused severely. Growing up Belicia doesn’t talk about her horrible situation, she stays quite for 40 years. In the next chapter, Oscar graduates still without being in love and moves back home. Seven Months later Oscar becomes an English teacher. His students all make fun of him and he is just laughed at. Everybody in his life has moved on and he is just lonely.

Quote
"So which was it? you ask. An accident, a conspiracy, or a fuku? The only answer I can give you is the least satisfying: you'll have to decide for yourself. What's certain is that nothing's certain. We are trawling in silences here" ( Diaz 243)

Reaction
   This quotation is an excellent example of the author’s style of writing. The speaker jumps out of the story and actually speaks to the reader, he makes him think about the stories dilemma and doesn't give him an answer. In this quote, the speaker is asking the reader to decide weather the whole book is based on an accident or a curse. In my personal opinion, I truly think it was a curse. The speaker is able to make the reader decide on there own conclusion of the story and at the same time informs them about DR's history.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

The wondrous Life of Oscar Wao By Junot Diaz (Pg.135-201)

Summary
Continuing on with the last section, Belicia becomes obsessed with being like her Gangster who didn't have anybody like La Inca always bothering him. Soon after, she found out that she was pregnant, this was a very huge shock to La Inca but not really to the Gangster, he really didn't care. Belicia then finds out that this man is married, but not by just any women but by Trujillo, the government dictator at the time, his sister. Trujillo's sister goes all the way to Belicia's town Banilejos Beli time to run away. Spies are able to catch and they take her far away to a cane field where they beat her up and give her 167 injuries all over her body and she loses her baby. Meanwhile, La Inca has an intense prayer session with a lot of the women in the community who find out about this dilemma. At this point when she is left there, a mystical Monogoose comes out and talks to her and gives her directions that lead her to a truck. In the truck, there is a band, the band for some weird reason feels that they should take her with them. Belicia wakes up five days later in a hospital being treated by La Inca's friends who happened to be the two best doctors in Bani. Around the same day, Trujillo dies and this is sort of the end of his dictatorship in Dominican Republic, so it makes it easier for people to get in and out of the country. Therefore, Belicia decides that the safest thing for her to do is to leave to New York were she could start all over. and screams at her and tells her that she was going to make her get an abortion. At this moment, the people that she used to work with save her, her old boss named Juan pulls out a gun and gives
In the next chapter, the narration changes to Juniors point of view that is Oscar’s roommate. Junior gets to experience Oscars problems while living with him, even in college Oscar is still overweight and cannot get a girlfriend. So Junior decides to help him by taking him out with his friends and working out with him. But Oscar feels that things will never change for him and gives up. Next, Oscar starts falling for this girl named Jenni who is very much attracted to, and Junior sort of gets jealous of their close friendship. Jenni starts talking to another boy, who makes Junior suspicious and Oscar finds out and just gets Depressed. One day, Oscar decides to barge into Jenni's room and catches her with another boy, and starts screaming and tarring apart her room. Everybody on campus then thinks that Oscar is crazy. When the Semester ends Junior decides he wants to move out, but on the last day they decide to have a couple drinks. Oscar being a lightweight, becomes drunk easily and goes to a bridge were he attempts to commit suicide. This event brings the whole family to the schools health facility and Oscar moves back to his house after this. Junior never forgets about Lola and shows a deep attraction to her besides his other girls. Junior always checks up on Oscar and at the beginning of the Spring Semester they move back in with each other.

Quote
" But later, when she was freezing basement apartments in the Bronx and working her fingers to the bone, she reflected that he had told her exactly that but like lover girls everywhere, she had heard only what she wanted to hear. " ( Diaz 137)

Reaction
In this section, Belicia is talking about The Gangster's reaction to her being pregnant and talking about later in her life when she moves to new york. Junot uses a lot of literary devices to portray Belicia's the hard labor shes doing at the time. Also, we see the sort of writing style that Junot uses by using stereotypes, in this case he speaks about "lover girls everywhere" who only hear what is good for them. This type of writing is beneficial to the reader by generalizing the situation a bit more and using verisimilitude. It also shows his style by going back in forth in time, and in other cases changing narrators constantly.