Summary: The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao

The originality and captivating writing of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao showcases the way that Junot Díaz enraptures his audience and makes them think. He makes readers consider the social norms and social classes in which they live. The namesake of the novel, Oscar Wao, is a Dominican nerd who struggles with his weight his whole life. Oscar dreams of finding love and becoming a successful science-fiction writer but both dreams fall short of his expectation since he never grows out of the “fat sci-fi-reading nerd” persona (19). The pain Oscar endures being severely bullied for his weight, entering and leaving college without his first kiss, and being rejected by practically every girl he sets his sights on, finds its way into the hearts
Mixing locations and time periods allowed Díaz to create a novel with high political and cultural significance. The characters challenge the social norms of their place and time, for example Lola presenting herself as a “Banshees-loving punk chick” to the dismay of her mother, and in a completely different time period Lola’s grandfather doing the unspeakable and challenging the rule of the Dominican dictator (54). For characters like Beli and Abelard, Oscar and Lola’s grandfather, their storylines draw on the impact that the government, especially the ruthless ruler, Trujillo, has on their lives. Further down the line though Oscar, Lola and Yunior do not have to live under a harsh dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, they do have to cope with the always-increasing social pressures of growing up in America as Hispanic immigrants, exhibiting the deviations in social and cultural aspects of life as time