While reading “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz I was confused with what the author believed. Does he believe in the “fuku” curse/doom or is he trying to prove some other point? For example, Diaz states “In my parents’ day the fuku was real as shit, something your everyday person could believe in” (2). Diaz shows that people in his life believed in fuku; it was a common occurrence. I do not know if he himself truly believes in fuku or not. If he doesn’t, then I believe that he uses fuku as some sort of metaphor. Diaz says “…that whoever killed Trujillo, their family would suffer a fuku so dreadful it would make the one that attached itself to the Admiral jojote in comparison” (3). Is the fuku a metaphor for the fate or reaction that would happen as a result of the murder of Trujillo? If not then I still found this piece of writing very entertaining. It’s not as professional as most pieces that I have read. The way Diaz speaks alone makes me create him as a character in my mind instead of just reading someone’s boring lecture. The topic was very interesting. At first I read the whole passage with the view that everything that Diaz said was literal. I found it hard to find something difficult to pick out from it so I started to nitpick at it.
