The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

As Oscar starts to feel the fukú creeping in at home, he decides to go the Dominican Republic—possibly not the best move given that his ancestral home is the source of the curse. He is driven there in part by the appearance of the Mongoose in his dreams. Here, Yunior begins to capitalize the word Mongoose as if to lend it a more mythical aura. Again, the Mongoose nominally works on behalf of Oscar—on paper, a visit to the Dominican Republic is just what Oscar needs to get out of his slump—but the visit will ultimately be the catalyst that leads him down the path to destruction.

Once the narrative shifts to Santo Domingo, Yunior comments that it’s like diaspora in reverse, as the country floods with Dominican Americans visiting family members and friends. As pointed out in the Nation article cited earlier, Oscar Wao highlights how modern immigrants differ from immigrants from previous generations in that it is easier than ever to stay connected to one’s homeland, via plane travel and now via the Internet. The modern immigrant experience is also complicated by globalization, as Yunior points out the proliferation of Burger King and Dunkin’ Donuts franchises on the island of Hispaniola. The cultural incongruities are thus impossible to avoid for the characters, whether they are in the Dominican Republic or in the United States.

Yunior also points out the darker side of this reverse diaspora. Many of the same toxic power dynamics that afflict Dominican Americans are at work back home, albeit with different victims. Yunior writes:

[I]t’s one big party; one big party for everybody but the poor, the dark, the jobless, the sick, the Haitian, their children, the bateys, the kids that certain Canadian, American, German, and Italian tourists love to rape—yes sir, nothing like a Santo Domingo summer (271).

To an extent, Yunior frames these inequities as aftershocks of the cursed era of Trujillo. Nowhere is this link clearer than in the character of the capitán, Ybón’s police captain boyfriend. Although he was too young to serve under Trujillo, he served under one of his successors, the murderous Joaquín Balaguer, who tortured or killed 11,000 people and enslaved 50,000 Haitians. Thus, the capitán and the continued power he wields as a police officer makes him the embodiment of the lingering evil of Trujillo. In a slight rebuke to the Lord of the Rings metaphor, Yunior points out that Trujillo is even worse than Sauron because his dreaded influence persists even after his death. In the previous chapter, he writes, “Trujillo was too powerful, too toxic a radiation to be dispelled so easily” (156)—and now his legacy continues with men like the capitán.

Meanwhile, on the topic of Ybón, the author employs potent metafictional elements that call into question the veracity of much of the narrative. For example, at one point he quotes La Inca, who claims Oscar is lying when he says he met Ybón on the street. Suddenly, Yunior is no longer the semi-omniscient Watcher but rather a flawed journalist sharing contested reports. The narration becomes even more unreliable when Yunior admits that Ybón, a beautiful, kind Dominican sex worker with no drug problems and a crush on Oscar, is a rather implausible and even overly exoticized character—a stereotype, Yunior writes, out of the dubious “Suburban Tropical” genre. Yunior brushes off these complaints, writing, “Can’t we believe that an Ybón can exist and that a brother like Oscar might be due a little luck after twenty-three years? This is your chance. If blue pill, continue. If red pill, return to the Matrix” (285)—a reference to the blue pill from the film The Matrix, which symbolizes blissful ignorance.

This unreliability of accounts plays into another of the book’s major symbols: la página en blanco or “the blank page.” In totalitarian regimes, history is erased or whitewashed to the benefit of the oppressor. This even happens literally when Balaguer, in his memoirs, writes that he knows who ordered the death of journalist Orlando Martínez—Yunior says Martínez’s killer was Balaguer himself­—but will not share the killer’s identity. Instead, he leaves a blank page in the book, which is to be filled in with the killer’s name when he dies. Yunior, rather than let these pages remain blank, furiously fills them with the stories of Trujillo’s victims and their descendants. To Yunior, this is an almost holy act of reclamation, and if he goes overboard in sometimes obscuring the literal truth in favor of a more emotional truth that makes Oscar look good, then so be it.

As Oscar’s third romantic escalation hits a bloody crescendo, the Mongoose reappears. As when Belicia lay on the verge of death in the canefields, the Mongoose serves as a guide, this time for Clives as he searches for Oscar. The Mongoose also appears to Oscar while he is unconscious from his injuries. Here, Yunior offers a convincing argument that the Mongoose is an agent of fukú, keeping the curse’s victims alive so they can suffer more. The Mongoose asks Oscar, “What will it be, muchacho? More or less?” (301). Although Oscar reflexively shouts “Less,” he thinks of his family and reluctantly croaks, “More.” The implication, then, is that the Mongoose only guides Clives to Oscar so he can experience even more pain in the future.

Later, in yet another of Oscar’s dreams, la página en blanco makes an appearance. In fact, his first words upon waking are, “The book is blank” (302). This could mean that the erasure persists of families like the Cabrals and the de Leóns who suffered at the hands of Trujillo and his spiritual descendants. The victory of the capitán over Oscar proves as much.

Finally, Yunior sets up Oscar’s decision to make his final doomed trip to the Dominican Republic, which is described in the following chapter. As Oscar recovers from his injuries, he seeks solace in an old favorite: The Lord of the Rings. However, he cannot get past the line, “and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls” (310), a reference to Black men who serve Sauron. This line sharpens his resolve to return to Santo Domingo as a rebuke to the cycles of oppression that continue long after Trujillo’s death. The next time he hears voices in his dreams, the screams of all those who died and suffered in the canefields, he finally possesses the courage to listen and to fill the blank pages with their voices.