The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: A Fukú Story to End the Curse of the Dominican People Madeline Bilbra College

In his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz brings to light a piece of Dominican history that he sees as both relevant and problematic. Within the first few pages of the novel, the speaker identifies his story as a fukú story. Fukú americanus is a curse supposedly specific to the people of the Dominican Republic, which Díaz uses to shape the circumstances surrounding his novel. The novel works to identify the true nature of fukú and transform it into something concrete rather than an ambiguous curse. In doing this, Díaz also attempts to identify the zafa or solution to counteract this ancient curse. With his portrayal of Beli and an allusion to the work of W. B. Yeats, Díaz reveals the true nature of fukú and the zafa needed to overcome this seemingly unconquerable force that appears to destroy the characters in the novel.

Díaz deems the tragedy of his story to be the product of fukú, which he reveals as the misfortunes in the history of the Dominican Republic that have affected the Dominican people. The novel identifies fukú as “a curse or a doom of some kind” (Oscar Wao 1). The origin of this “curse” has roots in the European colonization of the Dominican Republic and Díaz traces it through Dominican history...