Oscar.

In ‘The brief and wondrous life of Oscar Wao’ Oscar is a morbidly obese Dominican who lives in New York. He struggles through life, as everyone torments him and he torments himself. Eventually a curse, which has been in his family for years, does him in. The book has a lot to do with culture, at some points its bilingual, and it has foot note upon foot note on like in the Dominican Republic. Oscar feels tons of pressure from his homeland to be slick and smooth with the ladies, and he spends hours worrying that he isn’t (and he isn’t).   

Having a culture where unspoken rules, ethics, a morals are passed down from generation to generation is usually a good thing. It promotes a tight knit community, where everyone knows each other, and knows how everyone acts.  But it also makes a harsh place for people who are different. When every single person has the same standards, and someone can’t meet it, then every single person will be disappointed, and displeased. For Oscar, being a stuttering, obese nerd makes him a sore thumb in the Dominican community. He desperately wants to fit in, but he is unable to. In fact, he is so different from everyone else that people regularly ask him whether or not he’s actually Dominican. He insists that he is, but is he really?                  

Sure his family comes from there, but he doesn’t have the same morals, he doesn’t have the same standards or beliefs. The only thing that marks him as Dominican is his heritage, and is that enough? What does it mean to be from somewhere? For Oscar is means having people that accept him, having people that are similar to him, and share his thoughts. And in Oscars case, the place where he’s from is not his land, or his culture, and much as he wants it to be.