The women portrayed in the first parts of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao are
portrayed as smart and capable, yet almost handicapped by their sexuality. As
Latina women of the Dominican Republic, they have societal roles which they are
expected to fulfill. They must be good housekeepers, cooks, wives, and mothers,
but also are supposed to be sexual beings not afraid to flaunt their bodies. So
much of this novel revolves around the relationship between men and women, and
author Junot Diaz paints a picture of a culture in which men are in constant
pursuit of sex with women who are not supposed to run from it or be selective
with their partners, but rather be submissive.
We see this most notably with Lola, Oscar’s sister, and Belicia, his
mother.
Despite a short period in Lola’s life where she compromises
her individuality for a boy, she stands out in the book as the rebel character
who refutes the norms of her society with which she does not agree. Young women
are supposed to be sex symbols, but Lola cuts all her hair off and becomes a
“punk.” When Belicia, her mother, see’s her new boyish look, even she is
horrified. Lola says,
“The next day my
mother threw the wig at me. You’re going to wear this. You’re going to wear it
every day. And if I see you without it on I’m going to kill you (59).”
Shortly after Belicia says this to Lola, Lola throws the wig
over the stove burner and it goes up in flames. This is symbolic of Lola
rejecting the societal norms that bind her, and makes the reader want to root
for her to break free and realize her true potential. A part of her realizes that
she is more than just her looks, and despite a brief derailing into the bad
relationship, we know that she generally stays true to herself as she grows
older thanks to the portion of the book from Oscar’s point of view.
When the book flashes to Belicia’s adolescent years, readers
learn that she manipulated her sexuality for attention. When she was in
elementary school, she was homely and quiet, mostly keeping to herself. When
she reached middle school, however, her body became curvy and womanly, and she
couldn’t walk outside without getting the attention of every man in the
vicinity. Unlike Lola, though, she didn’t rebut the fact that her looks were
her identity. She loved it, and on page 94,
we learn that it signifies a whole new beginning for her.
Telling Beli not to flaunt those curves
would have been like asking the persecuted fat kid not to use his recently
discovered mutant abilities. With great power comes great responsibility … bullshit. Our girl ran into the future
that her now body represented and never look back.
Belicia reacts completely differently from Lola and indulges
herself in the Latina vixen stereotype. In both cases, though, readers see the
power that lies in female sexuality. Lola rejects it and gets attention for
being a nonconformist. Belicia embraces it and everyone knows her for her body.
Either way, this book shows that it is hard for women to separate themselves
from their looks, and the author makes a point to show how this is especially
true in a culture where looks are so intertwined with identity.
I agree with this post that Diaz highlights the impact sexuality and gender roles has on each character. In any culture (not just Dominican, as Diaz points out in the interview we watched) there are definitely expectations for the women to look and carry themselves a certain way. There are similarly narrow expectations for men as well, and in this novel it there is a strong correlation between success with women and social power. Diaz explains that the reason Beli is happy about her new body is that she finally has a glimpse of power. Before she felt insignificant and powerless: “Beli was a girl, for fuck’s sake; she had no power or beauty” (81). When she grows more attractive, she is very excited “by the undeniable concreteness of her desirability which was, in its own way, Power” (94). The problem with this power that women can possess is that it is completely dependent on men, a byproduct of the real power that men gain from being good with women. I think Diaz argues that beauty is not real power because the most beautiful characters don’t end up well. Additionally, beauty is transient, which Diaz demonstrates when Beli gets cancer and loses her breasts and hair. I think that Lola on the other hand, derives power from denying these expectations, and it seems that this is a more genuine type of power.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact that female sexuality is a defining characteristic for the women of this novel. However, I disagree with the ending sentence of the introduction, saying that the women are submissive due to societal standards. I would argue that Belicia isn't submissive to her partners. This is demonstrated greatly in the part on page 115-116, where she attacks the Gangster for grabbing her arm and asking where she is going. She throws everything located around her at him and continues to beat him up pretty severely. She does not follow his orders immediately like other stereotypical Domincan women would. Throughout the rest of the section, she never takes what the Gangster has to say at face-value. She is constantly challenging him by asking where he is going, what he's doing, and who he's with. Even though he doesn't tell her the truth, Belicia continues to pester him.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that Belicia is submissive because of society's standards; however, I think that she can be submissive due to the fact of love. La Inca tells Belicia that she should leave him continuously, but Belicia never does. The standards that society presses onto her are not the reason, however. Belicia does what she does because she genuinely loves the Gangster. She is swept away from reality to this dreamland where a man would love her and take care of her. This is why she does what she does. The pressure of society doesn't keep her waiting every time he leaves; her love for him keeps her there, waiting for him to come back.
I like how you emphasize female sexuality as power in this novel. I think it is also interesting to think about how this sexual power seizes the Dominican men.
ReplyDeleteYunior is an excellent example. Once Yunior has been named, we instantly learn “exactly what kind of sucio [he is]” (169), a man who gets around as much as possible with “[his] novia (girlfriend) and of course… [his] slutties” (172). Yunior is a typical Dominican man, as portrayed by Diaz’s novel, and he is also a slave to female sexuality. When his girlfriend breaks up with him after discovering one of his many affairs, he finds himself lost. Yunior turns to his “Oscar Redemption Program” (179), trying to educate Oscar about women and forcing him to work out. Yunior himself, however, is hiding from his own problem lacking a woman.
We also see that Yunior is very sensitive to any type of rejection. For example, when he tries to pull the moves on Jenni, the goth, “she laughed at [him], and when [he] said, Don’t laugh at me, she asked: Why not? Fucking bitch” (182). Frankly, his reaction seems extreme given this one woman told him no. Yunior is also upset by Lola’s rejection of him: he throws the phone in anger when she tells him to never speak to her again (179), and when he encounters Lola on the bus, he forgets the women waiting for him and thinks only of her (198). To Yunior, she’s ‘the one who got away,’ and he can’t stand it. Yunior, like most Dominican men, is under the power of the female body: he is nothing but lost without women.