Fuku Americanus | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Because I read this book during my junior year of high school, I didn’t find reading this text confusing at all. I am aware of the themes, characters, and events that take place in the story. Fuku and Zafa play a role in the story’s events and characters’ negative experiences. Fuku represents the hardships that every family can ensure, specifically those who migrated from other countries and who are regarded as social outcasts. Junot Diaz places a great emphasis on the dominant presence of the Fuku curse. He points out that this curse is in fact real. Using the fictional narrator of the story, Yunior, Diaz points out that Fuku doesn’t always strike like lightning. It can work patiently, it’s slow, and sometimes it’s fast. Regardless of whether this Fuku curse comes fast or slow, it is doomish, and it makes it hard for someone to prepare for it. An example of Fuku is provided when Diaz mentions the Vietnam war; Diaz writes, “Why do you think the greatest power in the world lost its first war to a third world country.” The main character in the novel is Oscar Wao. His family, the De Leon’s, is subjected to constant suffering due to the dominance of Trujillo’s power and his influence on the fates of Oscar’s family members. Within this context, the novel argues that the curse, pursues Oscar and his family across generations, dooming them to tragic accidents and the characters’ inability to find love and reconciliation. The author brings up Zafa, a counteraction spell to Fuku, as a counteraction for all burdens that the de Leon family faces. The story itself is aimed at reversing the negative experience of the immigrants. To enhance the theme of Fuku, the author refers to the flashbacks from the past to describe the hard experience that Oscar’s relatives had to face. Fuku is represented through the governmental authorities and antagonists, including the cruel dictator Trujillo who persecutes Oscar, his mother, and his grandfather. Usually, when I get caught up in a passage, it is because I am failing to understand what I previously read in the text. I usually get caught up in understanding an author’s word selection or usage of figurative language.