research Assignment draft 1

Jenna Wilhelmi

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

By: Junot Diaz

ADÁN and EVA

Men and women have very distinct gender roles in the book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The men are meant to be super macho playboys. Any man who does not have sex with lots of women and are faithful are not ‘Dominican’ Men. Women have two options – one: innocent, holy, and pure or two: a whore. There is no in between or third option for the women. I find it rather interesting that the men are basically man whores but God forbid the women do the same. Its expected, almost demanded, that the men be the way they are. So, why is it so bad when a woman acts like a ‘Dominican’ man?

The ‘Dominican’ man is hot stuff. He is unfaithful and proud of it. This hyper-masculine image has persisted in Dominican men even after the Diaspora. It is the standard all men of color are expected to meet. During an interview, Junot Diaz he said, “I was surrounded by a lot of male writers of color who have this incredibly bizarre relationship to masculinity. It's like we were all mega-nerds but you would never know that if you listened to the way they talk about themselves” (LRC). He then went on to explain how Oscar came from this observation.

“There's a sense among many writers of color that the most invisible figure that was sitting between all of us was the nerd… And the concept of Oscar, the concept of this poor nerd, the concept of the real version of everything that we're performing against--at least as a Dominican man of color--suddenly came into my mind. This was the pariguayo (loser); this was the figure who shadows all of us in our attempts to live out this excessive masculinity” (LRC).

This hidden inner persona seems to exist in all the men. Even the narrator, Yunior, seems to want to break away from his role as a Dominican man despite witnessing Oscar’s failures. It is because he played his role that he was not able to be with Lola – the only girl he really cared about. However, he will not break character for fear of losing his masculinity entirely. The men only have one role they can fill if they wish to be called Dominican men. The women however, have two possible roles to choose from: the saint or the slut.

Take for example the differences between Beli and La Inca. Beli uses her new feminine body to get what she wants and it ridiculed by the other women in her neighborhood. She takes on the role of the whore even before she has sex. Then, when she does have sex, it is with someone ‘above her class’. While the boy does get a sound beating from his father, Beli is expected to take all the blame for this appalling act. She seduced him, how dare she be so beautiful and how dare she fall in love with someone above her! The only reason it was such a scandal is because Beli refused to admit it was a scandal. “In typical hardheaded Beli fashion, our girl insisted that he’d done nothing wrong, that, in fact, she was well within her rights” (101). Which, in fact Beli was well within her rights. There is nothing wrong with consensual sex. But when a ‘scandal’ does occur the girl is usually blamed while the man is all but congratulated. Thus, Beli falls under the label of the whore.

Then there is La Inca. Pure, holy La Inca with her strong connection to God and her noble beliefs. La Inca, the woman who was able to save her child from the wrath of the fuku with nothing but a prayer and her faith. “Let me tell you, True Believers: in the annals of Dominican piety there has never been prayer like this” (144). She takes the role of the saint, the pure woman with no sin in her soul and the other half of the two choices Dominican women have when they choose their gender role.

This saint vs. whore image of women is not just in the Dominican Republic or even in this book. It is everywhere and goes back to Adam and Eve. Eve is a whore for getting Adam and herself kicked out of Eden. Even though Eve isn’t even the one who ate the apple of knowledge; Adam did. However, Eve is blamed for it simply because she gave Adam the apple. Once again, it is always the women’s fault.

Notes for later additions:

I want to add a section about women and how they were seen because of Trujillo. I want to compare and contrast the ideal Dominican man to the American ideal. I also want to talk about how strong Diaz’s female characters are and how that strength is interpreted in a completely positive or a completely negative light. I found a bunch of articles about Trujillo and the sex trade and the rise of feminism in the DR and am still figuring out how to add them in with the book’s material. I wanted to see what was really happening in the DR at the time and how that may have influenced Diaz.