The Theme of Masculinity in Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
English 224
Masculinity What defines Masculinity? To be the “man” not be afraid and be strong. Ideas of what a man is suppose to act like and be. Masculinity is what led to the downfall of Oscar Wao’s life. Junot Diaz emphasizes sex as a big part in being a typical Dominican male. What it means to be a Dominican male, to be attractive and smooth with the ladies, to have charm and be able to woo them, and most of all sexually active. Dominican men as Yunior would put it must be able to get laid, and get laid often. They are the players, and need to know how to get a woman into bed, and much more then one. Oscar’s drive to make himself more of a man and find his masculinity and true inner Dominican self caused him to take very drastic measures in achieving it. He let it overpower his conscious from right and wrong and blocked out everyone else’s words against it. And finally, he let it end it.
Oscar’s main goal through out the whole novel is to be able to find a woman he loves but for her to love him back. He lacks everything possible that a typical Dominican male should have to be able to obtain his goal. He lacks masculinity not only physically but also mentally. Oscars thoughts are about video games, outer space, basically any science fiction movie/book that a nerd would be into, those were Oscars interests. He was made fun of all time, and looked at like he was not really, or was an embarrassment to the Dominican male standard. One night Oscar asked Yunior if he thinks its true that no Dominican male has ever died a virgin. When Yunior reply’s “ O, its against the laws of nature for a dominicano to die without fucking at least once.” Oscar reply’s, “That, he sighed, is what worries me.” (Diaz 174) This shows the importance of losing his virginity has on him. If he could just finally have sex he would enable masculinity, and the rest would just fall into place for him.
The question comes up that all this time he could have hired a prostitute and lost his
Masculinity What defines Masculinity? To be the “man” not be afraid and be strong. Ideas of what a man is suppose to act like and be. Masculinity is what led to the downfall of Oscar Wao’s life. Junot Diaz emphasizes sex as a big part in being a typical Dominican male. What it means to be a Dominican male, to be attractive and smooth with the ladies, to have charm and be able to woo them, and most of all sexually active. Dominican men as Yunior would put it must be able to get laid, and get laid often. They are the players, and need to know how to get a woman into bed, and much more then one. Oscar’s drive to make himself more of a man and find his masculinity and true inner Dominican self caused him to take very drastic measures in achieving it. He let it overpower his conscious from right and wrong and blocked out everyone else’s words against it. And finally, he let it end it.
Oscar’s main goal through out the whole novel is to be able to find a woman he loves but for her to love him back. He lacks everything possible that a typical Dominican male should have to be able to obtain his goal. He lacks masculinity not only physically but also mentally. Oscars thoughts are about video games, outer space, basically any science fiction movie/book that a nerd would be into, those were Oscars interests. He was made fun of all time, and looked at like he was not really, or was an embarrassment to the Dominican male standard. One night Oscar asked Yunior if he thinks its true that no Dominican male has ever died a virgin. When Yunior reply’s “ O, its against the laws of nature for a dominicano to die without fucking at least once.” Oscar reply’s, “That, he sighed, is what worries me.” (Diaz 174) This shows the importance of losing his virginity has on him. If he could just finally have sex he would enable masculinity, and the rest would just fall into place for him.
The question comes up that all this time he could have hired a prostitute and lost his