ENGL 1210W: Identity in Prose @identityinprose-blog - Tumblr Blog

Titus Andronicus - Act III, Shakespeare

One particularly telling passage in this act was when Aaron’s soul was referred to as “black.” Last class, our discussion necessarily brought out the fact that Aaron is the central villain in the work and is also deliberately portrayed as a Moor. This itself already begs the question about the motivations of Shakespeare for invoking Aaron’s race. By making the comment that his soul is black because of its evilness, it is difficult to entirely separate the conflation of his race with his character; that he is being described as black purposefully because of the evilness he exhibits. To that end, this discussion of race and blackness in the work brings about an interesting point regarding the purposeful biases with which Shakespeare is writing. Is Tamora’s evilness also a commentary on her womanhood and the power she possesses in this universe? While it is certainly possible that all of this is just a coincidence, I would be interested to see what everyone else’s take on this specific line, as well as the potential pervasiveness of these biases throughout other portions of the play, was.

#titus andronicus #william shakespeare #Griffin Patterson

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

In this chapter Oscar blames everything on this curse. The curse is called “Fuku.” This chapter tells you the origin of fuku. The curse got passed on from his family and ancestors. I do not think there is a curse. I just think he need to get his priorities together. Oscar feels like he is the only one having bad luck but thats not true and he does not understand that. Growing up when I was doing bad my mom would always talk to me. She would tell me “without a struggle there is no success.” From my mom telling me that she made me not scared to make a mistake because you live and you learn. Thats what Oscar needs to see and I do not believe in curses. I know his family and ancestors went through some bad things like torture , I don't think it is because of a curse.

-James

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Storytelling holds major emphasis in this book, both through the way the story itself is told, and through Abelard's, Oscar's, and Yunior's passions for writing stories. The narration of this story is certainly unique, as it incorporates Spanish slang and pop culture references, and occasionally jumps to Lola's narration from a different perspective. These three traits made me think about what Oscar and Yunior's short stories must've sounded like and how Abelard's books may have compared. Writing and storytelling is often seen as a form of self-expression, and Yunior seems to be pretty expressive in his narration. Oscar, similarly, wears his heart on his sleeve in his writing; anyone that reads it can tell how desperate he is for a girlfriend. If the rumors are true, Trujillo destroyed all of Abelard's writing, hindering his expression. Looking at the harsh punishment Abelard faced for one drunken comment against Trujillo, I can't imagine what would've happened to this book, had it been told during Trujillo's reign. Emily

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

Chapter 5 provides further support for the importance of physical appearance in Dominican culture. In previous chapters, we have seen Oscar become an outcast, Lola earn the disdain of her mother, and Beli turn heads from everyone including a prominent gangster all because of their looks. In chapter 5, we see this again as Abelard’s daughter Jacquelyn develops profound beauty. Knowing what would happen if Trujillo discover’s Abelard’s daughter, Abelard does all he can to hide her from the president. However, this only leads to his imprisonment. I found it incredible how the physical appearance of Abelard’s daughter could turn him from a prominent, wealthy, and well-liked into a prisoner.

In the DR, were good looks a blessing or a curse, or both?

-Brandt

#TheBriefWOndrousLIfeOfOscarWao #junot diaz #brandt

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

In the preface of Part II, we are exposed to a new aspect of Lola and Beli’s relationship. In previous chapters we have seen how their relationship is marked with tension. However, this time we see that there is a connection between Lola and her mother through similar experiences. Not only do both women similarly engage in sexual relationships that have nothing to do with love, in addition they also experience the same desire to escape from their lives and start a new one.

For one of the first times, we see Beli express affection for her daughter by defending her on the plane. While flying back home to Patterson, Lola starts crying on the plane. Shockingly, Beli shows an act of affection by putting her hand on Lola which is unusual for this character who verbally abuses her own daughter. Then another lady on the plane tells Lola to be quiet, this infuriates Beli who proceeds to defend her daughter and yell at the woman for not letting Lola cry in peace. This is one of the first instances in which we are exposed to a new perspective on the dynamics between Lola and Beli.

-Lexi

The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

Lola seems to have the same idea of children as Mrs. Brown from The Hours. Apparently children are just the worst. As a former child, I can agree that children are awful, but it’s strange to hear that opinion coming from a mother. Lola laments the fact that she wasn’t able to run away from her life and instead was stuck in a life where she was shackled down and ended up with children. She specifically mentions not having children as one of the benefits that she missed out on. She takes a moment to have some empathy with her mother, reasoning that there was no way for her mother to have been any different than the way she was, since she was that kind of person. It all seems a little too apologetic, honestly. Lola’s mom was a bitch. She’s just not a good person. While her bitchiness is justifiable, so is every instance of people being awful. The fact that something is technically justifiable doesn’t make the actor not a bad person.

- Nicholas

#Junot Diaz #nicholas

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Chapter 5

The descriptions of Trujillo remind me of a prominent figure on today’s global stage, Kim Jung Un. The quote that showed this was, “Shit was so tight that many people actually believed that Trujillo had supernatural powers! It was whispered that he did not sleep, did not sweat, that he could see, smell, feel events hundreds of miles away, that the was protected by the most evil fukú on the Island.” (Diaz, 226) It seems that both of these men become their power incarnate. The fact that Trujillo’s power are described as supernatural in a Catholic Country, shows that his power and oppression are entangled with religion, giving him validity of rule as absolute kings in Medieval Europe. The total deference to his power by Abelard is initially unsurprising. I started to root for him when he considered fleeing to Cuba, and was dismayed when he decided to attend the party without his family, as I knew this would be the end of him. The fact that Abelard’s book about can no longer be found, gives credence to this fictional story. It shows how a dictator can alter what people know about them far into the future by destroying literature that does not fit their narrative of who they are. I cannot tell if Abelard would actually believe in these supernatural powers and disregard his background of science, or if he thought that writing about Trujillo in this way would absolve him of his “crimes” he has committed by praising him in a book.

-Hugh

Chapter 5, Oscar Wao

In this chapter Fuku is in full affect. With the death of almost all of the Cabrals and the horrible circumstances throughout their life you would think it couldn’t get any worse. I have a feeling it will. This chapter introduces the grandparents and explains how all of the Fuku started. This chapter also shines more light on Trujillo. He turns out to be even worse than I thought he would be. He’s responsible for everything bad occurrence in this story and is the obvious antagonist along with the Fuku. I’m interested to learn more about Beli, a daughter of Abelard’s. I’m not sure if she will still be a part of the story moving ahead but I hope so because right now she’s still in school. I want to know how she turns out being “adopted” and the being the only child left of the Cabrals. A discussion question I have would be why didn’t Abelard and the Cabrals just leave the DR. I understand Trujillo had complete control and I may have just read over the explanation as to why they didn’t or couldn’t leave because I don’t know why they didn’t and would like to know. -Brayden

#TheBriefWondrousLifeOfOscarWao #Brayden

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

In this chapter, we continue to see how gender is portrayed in the book. Women are looked down upon and are treated as objects. Men showed how they treat women and that they have a girl on the side at all times. This shows the culture of the Dominican men as women believe that this is how life should be. They are slaves to men and have no real opinion. Until this chapter, the readers understand that the objectifying of women stems from the president. If the president did not have this viewpoint of women then the men might look to women more as equals. It is only certain instances in the book where women are seen not as objects and that is when Dr. Abelard wants to protect his daughter from the president. He sees the beauty in her and how she will be raped if she is introduced to the president. This defying the norm allows his daughter to live a longer life than if he let her meet the president sooner. Due to this mistreatment of women, it shows a cultural norm that was created in the Dominican Republic. Despite women fighting that they are being objectified, they have accepted it and even said all Dominican men are like this because their father and boyfriends have treated them poorly. Once one person defers from the norm it creates a change in society, but if a higher up does not change then it causes people to struggle to identify if they should stay with the norm and in this case, it is objectifying women or change the norm and treat women like equals. Will we see a change in the way women are treated in the coming chapters or does women's treatment not change because it has become the culture and the norm of the Dominican Republic?

-Margot

#The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao #Junot Diaz #Margot

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

- Emily S

#the brief wondrous life of oscar wao #junot diaz #emily s

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

Chapter 5 once again shows how in-depth Yunior went in his research for Oscar’s tale. He went back three generations, to Oscar’s grandfather, to explain the curse that the De Leon’s talked about so often, even though it seems like he doesn’t believe in it. The fact that there was so much information that appeared almost irrelevant to Oscar’s specific story, but helped provide a broader context to Oscar’s thoughts is impressive. Yunior doesn’t appear to be the type of person to go out of his way to do pointless things. He seems to usually have a reason for what he does (even if that reason is to take his mind off of a breakup). I am curious as to what the reasoning behind writing such an in-depth and thorough history was. What did he gain from that and what motivated him to do it?

#The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao #Junot Diaz #Haley

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz

Something that has stuck out to me as a recurring theme in this novel is the fact that the female characters who are described as beautiful are often the ones who suffer the most tragedy. In the first case of this, we see Beli taken advantage of because of her looks. Where she was once tall and awkward looking, she goes through a seemingly rapid sequence of puberty in which she develops into a very attractive young woman. This first brings her the attention of Jack Pujols, her classmate, who tricks her into thinking that they will be married one day and live a happy life together. This plan eventually falls apart though, when Jack throws Beli under the bus in order to save himself the humiliation of both being in trouble at school and having been intimate with someone from the lower classes. This happens to Beli yet again with the Gangster. Like Jack, the Gangster fills Beli’s head with dreams of moving away and living a happy life together. This too falls apart when the Gangster disappears leaving Beli totally abandoned and heartbroken once again. The second instance of this theme occurring took place in the chapter about Abelard - Beli’s father who she was never able to meet. Abelard has a very beautiful daughter named Jaqueline. Abelard’s efforts to hide his daughter from the “rapacious” Trujillo lead him into a dangerous life of alcoholism and paranoia. Because of his constant worry over his daughter, he unintentionally leads his whole family to ruin and leads himself right into the prisons of Trujillo himself. Within Junot Díaz’s novel, it seems that physical female beauty has a way of bringing down the people around it in much the same way as “fuku.”

-Matt

#TheBriefWOndrousLIfeOfOscarWao #JunotDiaz #matt

Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I thought that, in the this reading and throughout the book, it was interesting that so much time was spent describing the lives and stories of people related to Oscar but not Oscar himself. The first chapter does well to describe Oscar through the narration of Yunior but the subsequent chapters hardly focus on Oscar. The chapter about Yunior rooming with Oscar also focuses on Oscar describing his time in college. But apart from these two chapters, the book hardly focuses on Oscar instead describing the life of his sister, his mother and his grandparents. One chapter is devoted solely to the life of his sister, another to his mother and yet another to his grandparents. Within these chapters, Oscar is mentioned occasionally as Yunior mentions how Oscar visited Santo Domingo and other such places but otherwise these chapters do not focus on Oscar. It seems odd that the author would decide to spend so much time describing the life stories of Oscar’s relatives as it seems, at least so far, that these stories do not tie back to Oscar too much, after all the title of the book is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I could see the author describing the lives of Oscar’s relatives to illustrate the “fuku” on the family but there is so much detail and such a large portion of the book dedicated to these stories. Why does the author spend so much time describing the lives of Oscar’s relatives? How will these stories eventually tie back to Oscar?

-Gwynn

#Gwynn #the brief wondrous life of oscar wao #junot diaz

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Chapter 5 Junot Diaz

From this chapter, we learn about The Fall of the Cabral family. More specifically, the story narrated by Yunior reveals to us as readers the danger associated with beauty. It was emphasized repeatedly through the worries of Abelard that the beauty of his daughter Jaquelyn meant she drew the attention of Trujillo. Being the dictator, Trujillo could demand to have any woman he wanted. If a household did not offer up a desirable daughter to him, that was a reason for arrest, torture, and even death. We see this unfold when Abelard refuses to bring his daughter to Trujillo’s parties out of fear that she would be subject to the inhuman powers of the dictator to take any woman he saw. This possibility of his naive daughter being violated caused Abelard great distress and eventually be arrested as a result. From this entire story unfolding, we see the idea that being beautiful didn’t always come with a good fate. In fact, Abelard’s friend Marcus said the only way to protect daughters from the wrath of the regime was to be sure they were ugly. Being ugly would lead them to be overlooked by Trujillo and allow them to be raised in peace. Whereas in the case of Jaquelyn, she was continuously in danger as a result of her desirability. Overall, this chapter will add another dimension to our class discussion of desirability and how, for females, it can be essentially a curse.

-Jordan

#the brief wondrous life of oscar wao #junot diaz #jordan

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

In these reading, we basically get a glimpse into Beli’s father’s life and her early childhood, which is just incredibly tragic and sad. Something that especially stood out to me was the theme of power, particularly in the context of Trujillo. I felt like this reading really highlighted Trujillo’s abuses of power by connecting the story’s characters to him and showing the blight of Abelard for an extremely trivial thing. I thought it was interesting that a way Trujillo shows his power, besides punishing people for the littlest of things and creating a climate of fear, is basically by cornering beautiful women to sleep with him. It was particularly disturbing to hear of how Trujillo would use his power to take advantage of girls much younger than him and how some fathers actually felt honored and happy whenever it happened. Power was also seen in the context of the family that Beli stayed with, in which she’s essentially a slave for them and at one point, gets hot oil poured onto her naked back as a punishment, scarring her back and scarring her for life. In addition, something that has really stuck out to me is how there certainly seems to be a gender dynamic associated with power and abuses of power, whether that’s Trujillo, the Gangster, the “father” that pours hot oil onto Beli, and literally any bad guy referenced in the footnotes happens to be a guy. Do you think this was done purposely by the author, and if so, why? What kind of message do you think this sends?

- Stephanie

#the brief wondrous life of oscar wao #junot diaz #stephanie

Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz

Having read the first two chapters of Oscar Wao, I see a quite prevalent theme of not living up to one’s expectations in the chapter about Oscar. Oscar, a child of a Dominican family, is supposed to be good at many things he is really very bad at. Some of these things include girls, sports, and even looks. Oscar is described as a nerd who is interested more in books, sci-fi, and fantasy than he is in the things he is “supposed” to be interested in. It repeatedly mentioned by the narrator that Oscar is something of an anomaly in the Dominican community. Occasionally, Oscar even encounters people who do not believe the fact that he is Dominican because everything about him from his hair to his personality are distinctly un-Dominican. One cannot help but wonder if these tall expectations placed on Oscar are themselves responsible for the boy’s misfortune. Perhaps the pressure placed on him his whole life to live up to a certain standard did more damage than it did good.

-Matt

#The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao #Junot Diaz #matt

Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

One of the main things that stood out to me in the first chapters was the role that cultural identity played. Clearly, Oscar fails to fit in at school and in his neighborhood because of his Dominican race. He faces many difficulties due to his skin color and realizes the many race divisions. When in the DR for the summer, he feels as though his skin color is not a barrier to the things he wants to do. However, when he returns back to the United States all the difficulties return. Upon beginning his first year at college, Oscar hopes that college will be better and his cultural identity will not affect his future however he realizes that this is not the case. He receives a hurtful reaction from his classmates who do not accept him or treat him well because of his race.

-Lexi

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ENGL 1210W: Identity in Prose