The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Chapter 4 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
(Act.Chapter.Section.Paragraph), (Act.Special Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote 1
For f***'s sake, we were at Rutgers—Rutgers was just girls everywhere, and there was Oscar, keeping me up at night talking about the Green Lantern. Wondering aloud, If we were orcs, wouldn't we, at a racial level, imagine ourselves to look like elves? (1.4.1.64)
We love this insight of Oscar's. Let us break it down for you, Shmoopsters. First of all, it helps to know that orcs are those troll-like creatures in Lord of the Rings)—a super ugly and not-so-smart lot—and elves are, well, elves. So Oscar worries that he and Yunior are imaging "better" versions of themselves, versions that are closer to what other people would like to see in them. That is, that they think they can "pass" for native-born, white Americans a lot more often than they actually do.
Quote 2
At college you're not supposed to care about anything—you're just supposed to f*** around—but believe it or not, I cared about Lola. (1.4.1.3)
Here, Yunior informs us that a college guy isn't supposed to have long-term relationships. He knows he's expected to just mess around with girls while he's at Rutgers. This is a pretty common expectation for both American and Dominican young men: apparently, college is for hooking up. Then you settle down. What do you think?
Quote 3
[Oscar] coughed. I have heard from a reliable source that no Dominican male has ever died a virgin. You who have experience in these matters—do you think this is true?
I sat up. Dude was peering at me in the dark, dead serious.
O, it's against the laws of nature for a dominicano to die without f***ing at least once.
That, he sighed, is what worries me. (1.4.1.39-1.4.1.42)
It's true that Oscar tries to fit the mold of the Dominican male in some ways. However, we also think that he really respects women, and wants to experience love. More than societal pressure motivates him. He's kind of a romantic. Check out the last paragraph of the book if you don't believe us.
Quote 4
Jenni was her real name, but all her little goth buddies called her La Jablesse, and every standard a dude like me had, this diabla [devil] short-circuited. Girl was luminous. Beautiful jíbara [?] skin, diamond-sharp features, wore her hair in this super-black Egypto-cut, her eyes caked in eyeliner, her lips painted black, had the biggest roundest tits you've ever seen. Every day Halloween for this girl, and on actual Halloween she dressed up as—you guessed it—a dominatrix, had one of the gay guys in the music section on a leash. (1.4.1.96)
There are quite a few strong female characters in Wao. Beli. Lola. Jenni. Are the male characters in the novel threatened by these strong female characters, do you think? If so, why would they—these men from a macho culture—be threatened by a strong woman?
Quote 5
And besides, that fall a miracle happened: Suriyan showed up at my door. Looking more beautiful than I ever saw her, I want us to try again. Of course I said yes, and went out and put a cuerno [horn] in her that very night. Dios mío! Some n*****s couldn't have gotten ass on Judgment Day; me I couldn't not get ass, even when I tried. (1.4.1.194)
We don't doubt that Yunior hooks up with Suriyan here. But we do want to point out that Yunior also brags a lot about his good looks and charm throughout the book. As a narrator, Yunior does a lot of posturing: he wants us to know that he's strong and tough and that women constantly fall for him. We're guessing the reality is just a shade less fantastic than that.
Quote 6
Why is this the face I can't seem to forget, even now, after all these years? Tired from working, swollen from lack of sleep, a crazy mixture of ferocity and vulnerability that was and shall ever be Lola.
She looked at me until I couldn't stand it anymore and then she said: Just don't lie to me, Yunior.
I won't, I promised.
Don't laugh. My intentions were pure. (1.4.1.218-1.4.1.221)
We love Yunior despite his faults. And one of his faults is that he cheats on just about every girl he dates. Lola and Yunior are getting busy in this passage. Lola tells Yunior not to hurt her. Of course, Yunior will later cheat on Lola. He just can't help himself, we guess. (Though that seems like kind of a lame excuse.)
Quote 7
Made my little gestures, of course. A meal once a week. Picked up his writings, five books to date, and tried to read some. Wasn't my cup of tea – Drop the phaser, Arthurus Prime!—but even I could tell he had chops. Could write dialogue, crack snappy exposition, keep the narrative moving. Showed him some of my fiction too, all robberies and drug deals and F*** you, Nando, and BLAU! BLAU! BLAU! He gave me four pages of comments for an eight-page story. (1.4.1.28)
Yunior likes to tell us how he gets with hot girls. It's easy to forget that Yunior writes fiction just like Oscar. Granted, Yunior's stories probably sound nothing like Oscar's. As suggested above, Yunior veers toward gritty realism (and away from outer space fantasies). But why would Díaz have both the main male characters write fiction? What kinds of stories of masculinity, nationality, and so on are these two authors competing to tell?
Quote 8
Four days later they took him [Oscar] home. […]. I did manage to call him a couple times to check up on him. Even that was a lot because I kept expecting his mother or sister to tell me that he was gone. But no, he claimed he was "regenerated." No more suicide attempts for him. He was writing a lot, which was always a good sign. I'm going to be the Dominican Tolkien, he said. (1.4.1.166)
Not long after his suicide attempt, Oscar rededicates himself to writing. He declares that he's going to be the "Dominican Tolkien." Being a nerdy Dominican has probably gotten Oscar his fair share of bullying, but you have to admire his ambitions for his writing.