Junot Diaz's The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

1952 Words4 Pages

Love and Violence
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz covers the issue of Love and Violence thoroughly throughout the book, and shows how anger and love influence the impulsive and reckless decisions the characters made. Searching for Zion, by Emily Raboteau on the other hand shows that love comes in different forms and may be easily misunderstood. Abelard, Belicia, Lola, and Emily show love can be a devastating force if not handled carefully and, could be very dangerous. As others commonly have, Oscar confuses passion or lust with love, which in many ways can be critical when conveyed in violence. Similarly, Emily doesn’t fully understand the love that she shares with her father and it leads her to dangerous encounters.
In the Cabral and de Leon families, violent love is the only love they know. Abelard who was an extremely intelligent man wasn’t smart enough to avoid the tragedy which is love and violence. Beginning with Abelard and ending with Oscar the only love the family could relate to was one that included violence. In Abelard’s case, he was protecting his daughters out of the love he had for them. Trujillo was fixed on having his way with Abelard’s eldest daughter, Jacquelyn. But Abelard went through great lengths to avoid Trujillo and the curse with him as well. This is where the curse first crosses paths with the Cabral and de Leon families. The curse takes the lives of everyone in the Cabral family except for young Belicia. Abelard’s love for his daughter leads him and his family to tragic and violent deaths which can only be credited to the fact that the fuku curse goes wherever love is.
In Oscar’s voyage in search of passionate love, he continually falls under the deadly, friend zone or as it’s u...

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...d kill immediately but if acted upon quickly the violence could be avoided. Abelard started this whole mess but the love of his family was too strong and, he would rather his family broken up than together and possibly miserable. Lola’s problems with mother-daughter love roots from Abelard breaking up the family and Belicia problems with La Inca as a child. Finally Emily, she never felt the love she actually had because she was very conscious about what was going on around her, she would just form an opinion and stick with it stubbornly. Love comes in all different ways and was the clear cut reason why anger and love influence the impulsive and reckless decisions the characters made in their lives.

Works Cited

Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Penguin, 2007. Print.
Raboteau, Emily. Searching for Zion. New York: Grove Press , 2013.Print

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