Political and Emotional Dictatorship within Junot Diazs...

Political and Emotional Dictatorship within Junot Diazs Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Works Cited Missing Junot Dà ­az published his first novel and second book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in 2006, forty-five years after the 1930-1961 rule of Trujillo over the Dominican Republic collapsed. Thats the central theme of the novel: dictatorship. It concerns not only political, man-over-man, Trujillo-brutal dictatorship (though that is a haunting image throughout), but also psychological despots: the dictatorship of fear, of orphanage, of blighted love, of displacement, of cancer, of nerdiness, of ostracization, of obesity, of unrequited love, of male sexual hunger (both under- and over-supplemented), and, above all, of†¦show more content†¦Thus, for practical as well as literary reasons, Dà ­az focuses on the psychological and emotional despots stemming from one political dictatorship?that of Trujillo . But Dà ­az, again, is disciplined: He structures the plights of the Cabral-Wao lineage as the history of fukà º: Fukà º began with Colombuss step onto the sand of the We st Indies and, as a V, expanded to the crushing poverty and political unrest abounding in Latin America today, the plights of the Cabral-Wao lineage began with Trujillo and expanded with each generation, culminating in the doomed-to-sorrow, dictatorship-riddled life of Oscar Wao. Because of this structure, it suits to begin with the earliest generation chronicled: thus, Oscar Waos grandfather, Abelard Luis Cabral. Abelard is a member of the Fortunate People(213)?read wealthy people?which of course means not much dictatorship affected his life before Trujillo, but Trujillo, remember, is the beginning of the Cabral-Wao V. When the brutal Trujillo seizes power, however, Abelard must maintain the outward appearance of the enthusiastic Trujillista (215), which he wasnt. So he has to deal with keeping the household conversation off politics, but that is the only strong despot of his life. Thus marks the bottom of the V, both for the entire Cabral-Wao lineage recorded in