Freedom in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

by Nathan Gale

Freedom in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao plays an integral role in the narrators shared delusions of what experiences the world can provide. A freedom to express themselves, that will extricate them from their personal images both in their schooling and the general frustration they lead their lives with. Just as Belica (Oscar and Lola’s mother) searched for freedom from her adopted families upper-class prejudices, she also subjects her children later in life to the same constraints she faced in her day, with the notion to breed her children into people she was told were important, such as doctors or lawyers. Just as Lola describes the feeling of freedom after returning from her absences “It’s about that crazy feeling that started this whole mess, that bruja feeling that comes singing out of my bones, that takes hold of me the way blood seizes cotton. The feeling that tells me everything in my life is about to change.” Unlike many of her urges to runaway from her mothers tyranny, this feeling is something purer then adultery or shaving her head, that in itself wants to free her from her own idea of personal freedom. Similarity Oscar wants to be more then a nerd, he wants women, yet most importantly he is seeking love in all the wrong places. Love for him helps his identity free itself, from pornographic desires, and his role-playing tendencies. Just as he tries to love his first “friend that is a girl” Ana, he cannot bring himself to just seeing her as sexual idol, he cares for her, in this way he frees himself from his boyhood naivety. Yet ironically falls victim to that naivety in his search for companionship in Ana.

The characters seem to set in motion a circle of misery in each others chaotic lives passed down through the generations. Just as La Inca, wants to shape her daughter into a formal doctor, she removes the freedom to discover oneself needed in a child's growth into a self respecting individual, whose ideas of perfection can be different from those of her mothers aspirations. All characters seem to be cast as extreme outsiders, not fitting into any category both in school and in their neighborhoods. Belcia works at the Chinese food restaurant to express the fact that she does not a want a life planned by her mother, yet in turn like Lola and Oscar after her she will fall pray to the naive ideas of freedom. As she is soon engulfed by the treacherous lifestyle of her boyfriend The Gangster, and in turn looses more freedom then if she were to work under La Inca. What is odd is the similarities that occur both in the mother and daughters choices in life. Perhaps this is Juno Diaz’s way of communicating to us the unbareibilty of likeness we share with our parents.

Oscar is not effected by the vicious cycle that both Lola and Belcia have placed upon themselves unknowingly. Instead he is a victim to his mothers delusions and ailments, and Lolas thirst for personal freedom. Rather he is trapped inside himself in his vortex of role play games and sci-fi. This is his own way of finding freedom from his mothers prejudices and his Dominican neighborhood, a way of expressing himself. He detaches himself and ultimately tries to find freedom through his strong didactic urges for women, yet in all honesty women seem to exist as a false hope to him. Indeed, his interests act as a reflective metaphor, he is alienated trapped and feels separate from the world he lives in, just as the characters in his comics and sci-fi novels, are supernatural and disproportional from reality. This seems to echo and narrate how Oscar feels trapped in the confines of his small Dominican neighborhood, as well as it helps him relate to himself and find bearing in the world around him.