Junot Díaz's Oscar Wao: Culture, Identity, and Clash

Introduction: Oscar as Cultural Outsider

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz is a combination of cultural experiences and influences as rich and imaginative as the stories the book contains. Within the main character, Oscar, lies the power to both transcend definitions of culture and become a victim of a specific culture's stereotypes and norms. Oscar is an obese, alienated figure within his own culture, yet he is drawn out of his personal problems and the violent existence shaped by Dominican dictatorship through his love of escapist literature and storytelling. Oscar even refers to himself as a "victim of fukú americanus," or the "Curse of the New World" (Díaz, 2007). This is an integral idea within the novel and helps to shape the cultural struggles that run throughout it.

Throughout this entire voyage through Oscar's life, author Díaz explores the mixture of cultures, languages, and ideas that has shaped his own life. The book, as it recounts the harrowing, violent stories of Oscar and his family, is as much a reflection of the author's willingness to accept a mixed cultural existence as it is an opportunity to recount the viciousness and atrocious nature of the Dominican dictator, Trujillo. History, as Díaz explains and as the reader learns, is more alive than one might think, given the enduring influence it has on people today.

The Blank Page and the Cultural Vacuum

The collision of culture is best described and embodied by Díaz's ability to narrate Oscar's story as a kind of fulfillment of a blank space on the page. Díaz calls this the "pagina blanco," or "blank page" (Díaz, 2007). This space is filled not by one culture alone, but by many, as they conflict and swirl together to create a new kind of physical and social dialogue within each character and across their interactions. The cultural vacuum created by Oscar's multicultural upbringing is as important to the story and to the literary dialogue as the stories themselves. This idea — that space is often filled by something not well defined, or by some hybrid combination — is central to Díaz's vision.

Oscar embodies the antithesis of Dominican cultural ideals, and in this way a cultural clash at the most basic level is made evident. Each layer of that clash is defined by a story or an inner examination of what it means to belong to a specific culture, or to feel the influence of cultures that passed long ago. Díaz invokes the work of Chinua Achebe and James Baldwin to illuminate this tension, referencing Baldwin's observation that the English language reflected none of his experience, yet that if he learned to inhabit it, he could make it bear the burden of that experience. Díaz poses analogous questions about his own effort to make English carry the weight of Dominican American experience (Celayo & Shook, 2008). These questions are answered, in part, through the characters' interactions and personal reflections. The author takes a sharp, focused look at culture, history, and identity, encouraging the reader to do the same. In this way, Díaz enforces the idea that as cultures clash, new mixtures — both positive and negative — will result, and that all of these mixtures are affected by the gravity of their history, whether an individual accepts it or not.

Many of the book's characters undergo transformations as a result of cultural clashes. Oscar's sister, Lola, examines her own painful relationship with their mother in one chapter, which helps to explain and justify her move to the United States and away from the strife at home and in her country. Díaz therefore uses not only cultural motifs to expose and eventually resolve conflict, but generational and familial ones as well.

History, Colonialism, and the Weight of the Past

Díaz's book is also an examination of cultures clashing on the widest possible scale. Throughout history, the actions of one culture have shaped others hundreds of years later. This is certainly true for Oscar and his family, as the European colonization of the Caribbean and the political and dictatorial power vacuums it created are at the forefront of much of the struggle within the novel (Celayo & Shook, 2008). As one commentator notes, "Oscar Wao is more than a bildungsroman; it's an honest and poignant narrative that looks at the overbearing weight of history as it influences generations and generations of Americans, who often don't realize the impact it has on them" (Celayo & Shook, 2008). People frequently fail to recognize the ways in which history continues to bear on their culture, their personal stories, and their perspectives. Here, Díaz creates a dialogue between culture, history, and the individual, allowing readers to recognize the ways in which history still shapes their everyday decisions and stories.

Oscar's own inner turmoil mirrors the cultural collisions that take place as he and other characters begin to question cultural identity and definition. The clash of cultures that ensues becomes an element with its own existence, even as it absorbs bits and pieces of outside cultural influence. His existence has been shaped by the colonial actions of Europeans long since dead just as much as it has been shaped, rapidly and violently, by the dictator of his own home country. The mixture and clash of cultures does not simply produce conflict; it produces new, hybrid forms of meaning that neither culture could have generated alone.

Conclusion: Hybrid Identity in Cultural Chaos

Díaz's powerful and sharply focused examination of history is contrasted with characters who are ill-suited to become cultural icons or archetypes themselves. This, in a way, is a commentary on the shifting nature of culture and how cultural identities — or the lack thereof — can create something totally unique when mixed together under the right circumstances. Díaz tells the tale of a family living under the violent rule of Trujillo, whose cultural and personal struggles are often determined by decisions and actions that took place long ago. Such is the commentary of the author, who himself grew up in a multicultural environment and who drew on cultural icons from many different places to construct a new, hybrid cultural identity within the cultural chaos his novel depicts.

References

Celayo, Armando & Shook, David. "In Darkness We Meet: A Conversation with Junot Díaz." Molossus, May 11, 2008. Accessed May 9, 2011. http://www.molossus.co/fiction/in-darkness-we-meet-a-conversation-with-junot-diaz-test/.

Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Riverhead: New York, NY. 2007.

Tehelka TV. "In Conversation with Junot Díaz." Santo Domingo: Dominican Republic, March 2011.