The Brief Wondrous
To experience passionate feelings for the first time is invigorating, maybe on the grounds that it increases to a startling level of self-change. We’re all impacted by our loved ones, however a few of us all the more so. Evident in the novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, there are some people in the world who have extreme attachment and stress-related anxiety with being left alone, also known as Oscar in the story, ask themself of their own happiness. When the author, Junot Diaz, writes about self-growth throughout the novel, he explained that sometimes self-development can force you towards unfortunate propensities, making you more on edge, and even confused. In entering a relationship, there’s a possibility that you might turn into someone you might not wish to become; which often causes individuals to make illogical decisions that configures their lives, in this case, Oscar being the individual making irrational decisions.
Oscar had girlfriends as early as the age of seven, he was dating two girls from his school both Maritza Chacon and Olga Polanca at the same time. In spite of the three way relationship between the young lovers being an actual thing, it only lasted for a week. One day after school, Maritza wanted to face reality and confronted Oscar saying, “It’s either her or me!”, Oscar being the player that he was with his Dominican Republic blood at age seven, wanted to share, having the best of both worlds, but Maritza wasn’t accepting any of Oscar’s nonsense. Maritza was different from the other girls Oscar had interacted with. She was beautiful and easy going with the guys, while the other girlfriend, Olga was unattractive and quiet. So it was pretty easy for Oscar to choose who to be with, Maritza. Only to be dumped not even a week after Oscar had dumped Olga! Oscar was doleful.
So heartbroken to the fact that, he did not interact with another girl for years. After the whole situation of being dumped by Maritza, over the next couple of years Oscar became depressed, leaning towards food for comfort, in the end leading him to obesity, and when he got into the stage of early adolescence no one could really call him that cute little Dominican Republic boy anymore. Oscar got uncomfortable with his overweight body and no longer could go anywhere near girls, because they always “shrieked and called him gordo asqueroso.
However, Oscar had become so desperate that if a girl talked to him for even a split second, he would fall in love with her. He “became a social introvert”, not having many friends throughout high school. “Oscar’s affection-that gravitational mass of love, fear, longing, desire, and lust that he directed at any and every girl in the vicinity without regard to looks, age, or availability-broke his heart each and every day.” As a result, he became very unwoeful with his life, abusing himself not only mentally but physically by lowering his self-esteem and self-confidence. As it came towards Oscar’s Senior Year, “Oscar fell in love with a girl in his SAT prep class.”, Ana. Ana was a conversationalist, and in Oscar’s perspective “Ana had beautiful Carribean-girl eyes”
She was a bit strange compared to the other girls, yet good-looking, making Oscar fall head over heels in love with her. Until one day she talked about her ex-boyfriend, Manny. Although things were going well between Ana and Oscar, the thought of Ana talking about Manny kept roaming in the back of his mind, pestering him.- “My parents loved Manny. My mom used to cook dinner for him all the time.” Oscar liked Ana, but it didn’t seem that Ana had the same feelings.
When Ana had told Oscar that she and Manny were dating again, his heart got broken once more. Although this isn’t the last time Oscar gets his heart broken, it sure is a starting point to deep, dark thoughts. As we read about Oscar’s life in the novel, we can identify that due to the strong impression from Oscar’s surroundings, he believed that a person needed to be loved, naturally he received stress from not succeeding, and in the end lost touch with reality. With peer pressure of having been told to lose his virginity more than several times, he became desperate, wanting to prove to himself that he too, can get a girl and be happy with life. However, due to the fact that Oscar couldn’t really succeed in that area of expertise, it led him to numerous accounts of attempted suicide and eventually death.
