Running away is something many have accomplished, but running away from your past is impossible. It’s the thing that always lingers behind you, waiting for you to be vulnerable. That hides, waiting to be remembered. Waiting for you to finally run back to them. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junat Diaz Oscar and his family try to free themselves from not only their past but also their culture and their demons. This attempt at freeing themselves from these things is something many Latin Americans have tried. I know I have attempted to escape, but there is always a little bit of me that will always be Mexican. Just like Lola and Oscar will always be Dominican, no matter how much they try to ignore it.
And because of the need to forget it they become the a sort of “anti-Dominican.” You know they attack all the clichés and make them pray for mercy. And how do they do this? Well Oscar becomes an extreme case of geek and Lola a rebel. But no matter what they do they are still Dominican. They still live around all the breathing clichés. Like the sexually active cholos that beat their girlfriends. Or those same girlfriends that let their boyfriends beat them because es Amor or the other billion clichés that surround Latin Americans.
But for Lola it was much more than clichés. For her it was the expectations, and all that was put upon her shoulders. Most of it was just the responsibility of taking care of your fat unsocial brother, and your stubborn dying mother. She does run away from them too, but they soon trick her to coming back. Though it was her who let them in, because she missed them. That is the thing about culture and family. Yes, you can totally run away, but there will be part of you that will miss something. Even if that something is your brother. And no matter what, things will follow it. In Lola’s case those things were her mother and the rest of her family. But that was not the last time she attempted to run away. Though it seems that as she lived in the Dominican Republic, she actually accepted her culture, but then the past came tumbling in. Just like it always does.
Oscar on the other hand drifts away from his culture and family subconsciously. Since it is not something he can completely control. Even when he tries to fit in, it does not work. Oscar is just Oscar. Protecting himself from the world with the fantastical. Sometimes that is the easiest way to do it, and it’s the only way Oscar knows how. Both the fantastical and his culture are what lead to Oscar’s demise. Since if he had not drifted so far from all this Dominicanness he would have never ended up visiting that one horribly beautiful time. Not only was that the time when he fell in love with his homeland and a real girl that actually cared, but also when he first encountered that faceless man. Fuku.
And that is where the demons come in. They are the reason his mother lost so much, and suffered so much more. That faceless man is why she came to America. It is the thing that will be stuck to her family until the day they forget. Since the moment they learn about it they can’t erase it. Then they will begin to dream about the “No Face Man” and won’t be able figure their way out. It’s the inevitable. Since the Fuku is both their present and their past. He always appears when the worst is to come. Let it be in dreams or just as they are going to get their ass whooped. But with this Fuku comes Zafa. The Mongoose, the one that protects them all and leads them to survival. These are the two things they are all doomed and blessed with. What cannot leave this family's mind, because to them the Fuku and Zafa were the fairy tales they learned as a kid. The stories that really stuck and bent their expectations. No matter what the “No Face Man” and that Mongoose will always be in the back of their mind, waiting.
It’s all like Lola said: “The only way out is in.” Since you either have to just stop running or realize that it’s all in your head. It’s all just a part of you.
You do a good job here of focusing on the one idea of how it's impossible to run away. You're still missing the opportunity to use quotes directly from the text to strengthen your argument, though. In this case, I think this really would have helped you avoid straying into generalizations and vague statements. For example: When you talk about the expectations placed on Lola, give us some examples from the text; when you say that she'll miss her brother, but her mother comes with him, show us that scene where Oscar tricks her into coming home. How her mother tricks her into thinking she's hurt.
ReplyDeleteYou have quite a few vague statements in this: "Since if he had not drifted so far from all this Dominicanness he would have never ended up visiting that one horribly beautiful time." This needs some more explanation. Sometimes you seem to be equating the characters' Dominican heritage with their past, while sometimes you don't. And while the section on Fuku and Zafa is interesting, you don't really go into an interpretation of what you think these things are from a literary perspective. You seem to treat them as facts rather than as representative of larger cultural forces.
I also want you to watch out for fragmented sentences. Although these can sometimes be used to interesting stylistic effect, you've got a lot of them here that seem kind of arbitrary. I see at least three in the first paragraph alone.
So, overall, nicely structured and you clearly lay out what your specific topic is. But now you need to bolster this great set-up with specific examples that don't stray into generalizations.
Keep working at it!=7
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