Throughout The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao there are a series of supernatural events that occur to Oscar along with his family, both historically and in the present. These supernatural events and ideas that take place are believed to be out of the control of Oscar and his family. The fuku, a curse haunting Oscar’s family seems to be in control. Still, the author leaves it up to the reader to decide who is to blame for everything including Oscar’s fate. At the end of the novel Oscar was killed but does that mean that the fuku ultimately was in control of Oscar’s fate? Throughout the novel it definitely seemed that Oscar would never find true love and would die a virgin. Because of the curse Oscar would never attain what he longed for most in life. At the end of the novel it is learned that Oscar does indeed find love. This pattern of unrequited love that Oscar continually experienced finally comes to an end. Oscar and Ybon have a sexual relationship and share ‘little intimacies’ that Oscar could not have ever imagined. How is it that Oscar can experience love if his fate was in the hands of a curse? The reader can appropriately take a guess that Oscar experiencing a loving relationship and ultimately dying happily because of it means that Oscar’s fate was in his hands all along or maybe he broke the curse and was freed from it. Yunior knows all that Oscar is capable of. He knows that Oscar can find happiness and defeat the fuku, which one might argue he actually does ultimately do. The fate of Oscar is definitely not something that can be pinpointed to a specific person or cause. The author writes the novel in such a way that Oscar’s fate lies in the interpretation of the reader. The author tells Oscar’s personal story along with footnotes that give the Dominican Republic’s story expressing just how much Oscar’s brief life is an expression and result of his culture. There is always more to ones story and Oscar’s fate is not an exception.
