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The books Kindred by Octavia Butler and The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz depict the violent aspects within their respective cultures. The violence shown in these novels are intricately biased based on the connection to the gender, race, and cultural norms of the narrator. Butler writes Kindred from the narration of an African American woman in California who travels back to the antebellum south in the early 19th century. Díaz writes from the perspective of a Dominican man, Yunior, who is a traditional stereotype of the Dominican man. Writing from this viewpoint suggests the misogyny and structural violence are culturally embedded in the lives of Dominicans. Although both novels recognize domestic violence as culturally …show more content…
In contrast to the commonality of sex in Diaz’s Dominican world, sex in Kindred is secretive, violent, and has a negative connotation attached due to the culture norms in the early 19th century. Even though Rufus supposedly loves Alice, he repeatedly rapes her because “There was no shame in raping a black woman, but there could be shame in loving one” (124 Butler). Rufus uses sex as a form of violence against women, which could have been influenced by his father’s rape relationships with other slave women, during Rufus’s childhood. As a powerful white man Rufus is able to control Alice and since she is a slave and a woman, she is unable to refuse him, which is evidence to suggest women’s low status. Another example of the dark, violent depiction of sex in Kindred is the almost rape between Dana and the policeman. Her fear of rape allowed her to return home, which indicates that sex is a form of violence in this setting. Dana’s narration of the event signifies the negative depiction of sex and violence expressed in a black woman’s life in the early 19th …show more content…
The physical abuse between Ana and her boyfriend, Manny, enforce the acceptance of physical violence and misogyny in the Dominican world. As an outcast to the Dominican culture, Oscar stands up for Ana which emphasizes the normalcy of abusive relationships. However, as Oscar stands up for Ana he starts to become violent, which enforces the Dominican machismo. Even though Oscar has good intentions against the violence and misogyny, he embodies his Dominican culture by acting violently, which implies the culturally embedded machismo cycle of misogyny and violence. Another violent male character is the Gangster, who by his name creates a violent opinion of him. His relationship with Beli incites his Another act of male violence is developed through the relationship between the Gangster and Beli. First off, the character is named Gangster which automatically creates a violent appeal towards him. Gangster worked for Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, and eventually caused violent harm to Beli, despite their relationship. This further develops the machismo violence in the Dominican culture. The Dominican men and the white slave owners are fulfilling their societal norms, which suggest that the view of men in these cultures are as violent, powerful
Junot Diaz's Drown, a compilation of short stories, exemplifies how the high standard of masculinity within the Latino community can have a detrimental effect on males. These stories are told in the first person by a narrator called Yunior. The different stories are told against the background of The Dominican Republic and the United States. The narrator highlights the different challenges that he faces throughout his childhood and into his young adult life. During this period, he struggles to find his identity which is expected by every Latino. In the Dominican Republic, a man’s manhood is closely tied to his identity, and Yunior is no exception. While in the process of finding his identity, Yunior is challenged with abuse, poverty and the lure of drugs, which leads to his addiction and his becoming violent .…
Junot Diaz is a Dominican-American writer whose collection of short stories Drown tells the story of immigrant families in the urban community of New Jersey. His short story “Fiesta, 1980” focuses on Yunior, an adolescent boy from Dominican Republic and his relationship with his father. On the other hand, Piri Thomas was a great Latino writer from Puerto-Rico whose memoir Down These Mean Streets tells his life story as an adolescent residing in Harlem and the challenges he faces outside in the neighborhood and at home with his father. Both Diaz and Thomas in different ways explore the dynamics of father-son relationships in their work. Furthermore, both expose masculinity as a social construct.
The relationships between mothers and daughters is a topic that authors often call upon to tell a story. It is an important part of every culture, which makes the topic relatable to any reader who picks the book up. Junot Diaz understood the universality of mother/daughter relationships and incorporated it in his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Although the book is mainly about Oscar, an overweight Dominican boy from New Jersey and his quest for love, the book also spends a lot of time exploring the relationships between Oscar’s sister Lola and their mother Beli and Beli’s relationship with her mother figure La Inca. Junot Diaz does not write mother/daughter relationships in an honest way and focuses on the conflict in the relationships
Initially, because she underestimates her own courage, which has never been properly tested, Dana doubts that she has sufficient fortitude to survive in the nineteenth century. As Kindred unfolds, it becomes clear that she does, indeed, have abundant courage and stamina. Butler effectively utilizes a common technique in fiction whereby an individual becomes heroic by transcending his or her base humanity by drawing on hidden inner resources. Dana is tested in her second trip to the past when she is nearly raped by a white man who is part of a patrol—the forerunner to the Ku Klux Klan. Never before having experienced physical abuse, initially Dana is reluctant to act. She fails to disable him by gouging his eyes, thereby losing her only chance
In Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, he tells the story of a Dominican family but mainly about the son, Oscar de Leon. The book opens with the story of Oscar as a child and him having two girlfriends at the same time. The older people in town see him as a ladies man and encourage him. The boy and the two girls all broke up and his life seemed to be on a steady decline since then.
Junot Diaz’s novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is focused on the hyper-masculine culture of the Dominican, and many argue that his portrayal of the slew of women in the novel is misogynistic because they are often silenced by the plot and kept out of the narration (Matsui). However, Diaz crafts strong women, and it is society that views them as objects. The novel recognizes the masculine lens of the culture while still examining the lives of resilient women. In this way, the novel showcases a feminist stance and critiques the misogynist culture it is set in by showcasing the strength and depth of these women that help to shape the narrative while acknowledging that it is the limits society places on them because of their sexuality
In her novel, Kindred, author Octavia Butler addresses the challenges of interracial relationships. She touches on both consenting and non-consenting relationships. While Dana and Kevin are in a consenting relationship, their experiences and difficulties are similar to that of Rufus and Alice. Conversely, there are also many aspects of the two relationships that are very different.
“How could it feel so good when it should be disgusting and painful?” (Butler 75) These words spoken by Theodora, an elderly white woman, about her symbiotic and sometimes sexual relationship with Shori, a black “elfin little girl” (Butler 75), express the societal fear that Octavia Butler exposes in her characterization of Shori as a monster. Shori is a monster because her very existence is a testament to the blurring of historically concrete lines. She is androgynous, vampire and human, black and white, a child with adult strength and urges. Shori’s relationship with her human symbionts and other Ina usually defies normal standards of behavior and acceptance by using pleasure instead of pain as a mechanism of control and abandoning traditional ideas about gender, sexuality, and crossbreeding.
Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, set in the late 1900’s, tells a story of Oscar Wao, an overweight Dominican “ghetto nerd”, his mother and rebellious sister who live together in Paterson, New Jersey. Throughout the novel, Diaz incorporates many different stories about each character that show acts of resistance. One of the most prominent stories of resistance in the novel is through Oscar’s mom; Beli, who is prompted by great tragedy, known as the Trujillo curse, to love atomically and thus follow a dangerous path. Beli’s family history plays a large role in her choices that eventually compel her into a different life than what her adopted mother, La Inca, had wanted
What defines an individual’s racial characteristics? Does an individual have the right to discriminate against those that are “different” in a specific way? In Octavia Butler’s works, which are mostly based on themes that correlate to one another, she influences the genre and fiction in ways that bring light to the problems of societies history. Through Kindred and the Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler examines themes of community, racial identification, and racial oppression through the perspective of a black feminist. In each novel, values and historical perspective show the hardships that individuals unique to an alien world have to face. Through the use of fictional works, Butler is able to delve into historical themes and human conditions, and with majority of works under the category of science fiction, Butler is able to explore these themes through a variety of settings. This essay will discuss two of Butler’s popular works, Kindred and the Parable of Sower, and will interpret the themes of women, race, independence, and power throughout the two novels.
...e allows violent language to drive the characters. Yet at the same time, the violent language ends up proving to be not as harsh and actually leads these sets of characters to courtship.
In an occurrence while Dana tries to stop Rufus from selling an african american man from his family, the two have an unforgettable confrontation, Dana said. “Please, rufe. If you do this, you’ll destroy what you mean to preserve. Please don’t… He hit me… It was the breaking of an unspoken agreement between us — a very basic agreement — and he knew it.”(Butler, 238) For the first time Dana’s sense of safety with Rufus is lost. when Rufus betrays her as she has anticipated for a long time, she is filled with fear. Rufus and Dana's relationship for the first time shifts. Before the two had an unspoken agreement to protect each other, but Rufus forgets himself and breaks that trust. He is use to treating the african american people as if they are nothing, he forgets that Dana is the exception. In a final moment in the 1800’s with Rufus, Dana experiences the most fearful moment of her life, while she thinks to herself. “He was not hurting me, would not hurt me if I remained as I was. He was not his father, old and ugly, brutal and disgusting. He smelled of soap, as though he had bathed recently—for me? The red hair was neatly combed and a little damp. I would never be to him what Tess had been to his father—a thing passed around like the whiskey jug at a husking. He wouldn’t do that to me or sell me or . . .“No." A slave was a
“Every 9 seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten” (American Bar). Just think about how many women have been beaten or coerced into non-pleasurable acts in just one day, when every nine seconds in the United States, some women is being abused. Now, globally, think about how many more people are being domestically abused and even killed.
How does domestic violence between parents and parental figures affect the children who witness it? This is a question often asked by Sociologists and Psychologists alike. There have been studies that prove that children who witness domestic inter-parental violence experience mental health problems, issues with gender roles, substance abuse, the committing of crimes and suicide/suicide attempts later in their lives. This paper will explore all five of these 'effects' of domestic violence on children and show that there is evidence of a clear relationship in which increasing parental violence is associated with increasing outcome risks (Fergusson & Horwood, 1998, p.8).
“Domestic violence is a violent confrontation between family or household members involving physical harm, sexual assault, or fear of physical harm” (Stewart & Croudep, 1998-2012). In most places domestic violence is looked on as one of the higher priorities when trying to stop crime. Domestic Violence cases are thought to be influenced by the use of alcohol, drugs, stress or anger but in reality, they are just learned behaviors by the batterer. These habits can be stopped as long as one seeks help (Stewart & Croudep, 1998-2012). For instance, a child is brought up in a household that is constantly involved in criminal acts. As this child grows up, the criminal lifestyle will be synonymous with his/her behavior. With that being said, it is also a given fact that if a household and its members are surrounded with violence, the relationships between one another will be strained. Eventually this will end up in a divorce or even worse, death, depending on how far the violence goes. If there is violence in a family, then the ones who are affected by it may feel like they deserve it because of what the batterer is accusing them of doing. Battering occurs among people of all races, ages, socio-economic classes, religious affiliations, occupations, and educational backgrounds (Stewart & Croudep, 1998-2012). Domestic violence can affect families in more aspects than one; the husband-wife relationship, the children, and also the financial stability.