Pakizer

Ariel Pakizer
Dr. Rodrguez Milans
ENG 3010
25th November 2014
The Reality of Fantasy
In Junot Dazs The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Oscar spends much of his time
immersed in the world of speculative fiction. He reads, writes, and watches a plethora of nerdy
material, but one trilogy he often mentions is J.R.R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings. The series
that launched the fantasy genre is mentioned several times in the novel as it relates to several
characters and situations within it. Daz uses these comparisons to show that Oscar, unable to
face reality, escapes into fantasy worlds, Lord of the Rings in particular, but that fantasyboth
the magical realism in Oscars world and magic in his fandomsproves unable to sustain Oscar
in a messy, complex reality, especially when considering the very prejudices he wishes to escape
from exist in the genre.
Oscar falls in love with nerdy things at an early age, which provides an easy escape from
the depressing world around him. Oscar sees Maritza, one of his first loves, French-kissing on
her front porch, all through his cheerless, sexless adolescence (Daz 18). He distracts himself
from the unquenched desire and pain the scene gives him by reading, the latest Stephen King
and other various geek things, like Dungeons & Dragons (18). This outlines the next decade of
Oscars life. However, the more nerdy he becomes, the smaller chance he has at love, His
adolescence nerdliness vaporizing any iota of a chance he had for young love (23). The novel
sets his fantasy life and love life apart. Oscars social life spirals downwards until his very
language and communication abilities are fused with his fandoms and their references.

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Oscar often communicates through nerd-speak. When Yunior moves back in with
Oscar, he tries to explain the decision and communicate his feelings towards Oscar, and, In
Oscars version, I raised my hand and said, Mellon, to which Oscar replies in kind (201).
Mellon is the elvish word for friend in Lord of the Rings, and, by using the word mellon instead
of friend, Oscar is able to better understand Yuniors feelings towards him through the use of
nerd-speak. Oscar, however, is not the only member of his family whose story involves Lord
of the Rings references.
The narrator frequently compares Oscars and his familys life to various fandoms, with
many comparisons to Lord of the Rings. Fuk is compared to Morgoths Bane (5)the villain of
J.R.R. Tolkiens The Silmarillion, the prequel to The Lord of the Rings. La Inca, during her
situation with the Gangster and his connections to Trujillo, is compared to Galadriel, an elf
possessing a powerful ring in the novels (156). The death of Trujillo is contrasted with the death
of Sauron, Lord of the Rings villain, At the end of The Return of the King, Saurons evil was
taken by a great wind and neatly blown away, with no lasting consequences to our heroes; but
Trujillo was too powerful, too toxic a radiation to be dispelled so easily. Even after death his evil
lingered (156). These contrasts draw a sharp line between the trilogy and these characters.
Oscars much beloved story becomes the catalyst between the worlds he escapes to and
the reality he cannot accept. In a fantasy story, Tolkiens in particular, the bad guys are neatly
blown away (156) where as Trujillo proves, too toxic a radiation to be dispelled so easily
(156). Oscar has several problems that cannot be tied neatly into a bow, like his weight issues or
trying to find love. While he meets many girls, none of them become the happily-ever-after love
he wants. The girls find other boyfriends and muddy the story Oscar wants to be simple and
clean, like his fantasy novels.

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Oscar realizes the black and white world of fantasy is not enough to sustain him. Before
he attempts suicide, the mongoose appears to him, and the narrator says, Dude had been waiting
his whole life for something just like this to happen to him, had always wanted to live in a world
of magic and mystery, but instead of taking note of the vision and changing his ways the fuck
just shook his swollen head (190). Magic has just walked into his life, but he still, threw
himself down into the darkness (190). The fantasy he always escapes into manifested, but it
cannot alleviate his despair.
Love, on the other hand, is what Oscar truly desires and is what could help heal his
insecurities. He meets Ybn Pimentel and, considered her the start of his real life (279). After
he is nearly beaten to death over her, Yunior recounts that
He read The Lord of the Rings for what Im estimating is the millionth time, one
of his greatest loves and greatest comforts since hed first discovered it, back
when he was nine and lost and lonely and his favorite librarian said, Here try this,
and with one suggestion changed his life. Got through almost the whole trilogy,
but then the line and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls and he had to
stop, his head and heart hurting too much. (307)
The problem Oscar encounters in this quote has several layers. After Ybn gives him a taste of
reality, Oscar cannot find the comfort he used to in Lord of the Rings. Not only is fantasy now
unable to sustain Oscar, but he also sees he cannot escape from the prejudices he faces in reality
in fantasy novels.
Oscar has been the victim of prejudice for most of his life; society and Oscar himself
dislike his weight and the color of his skin. Oscar wants to lose weight and tries several times to
do so, but his attempts always spiral after someone breaks his heart. Yunior starts Project Oscar

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where Yunior got the dude [Oscar] to exercise (176). Yet Oscars resolve crumbles. This time it
is because of how strangers treat him, You think people hate a fat person? Try a fat person
whos trying to get thin . . . old ladies would jabber, Youre disgusting, disgusting (177), which
breaks his heart and, consequently, his resolve.
Oscar, like other characters in the novel, has a darker shade of skin, which makes
whiter characters treat him as inferior. Daz frequently describes Belis dark skin, Abelards
third and final daughter . . . was born black. But black black . . . no amount of fancy Dominican
racial legerdemain was going to obscure the fact. . .people took the childs black complexion as
an ill omen (248). According to scholar Ashley Kunsa, the distaste for black skin originates
from Dominican nationhood which was from the first conceived in opposition to Haitian
dominationthat is, domination by a black state (215). She suggest blackness is linked to
slaves (214) and that while colored has meant a step (or steps) down from white on the U.S.
social ladder, the Dominican race terms afford a step or steps away from blackness, closer to
whiteness, and therefore up on the social ladder (218). In Oscar Wao, white characters
frequently have a higher social status than black characters. This is prominent in Belis
relationship with Jack Pujos, who is described as the schools handsomest (read: whitest) boy, a
haughty, slender melniboin of pure European stock (Daz 89). When their relationship is
discovered, her neighbors say, I told you that blackie was good for nothing! (102) and, after
her neighbors see her as the Gangsters whore, they believe she had finally found her true
station in life (127). Others frequently treat Oscar differently for his color too, questioning him
and his identity, The white kids looked at his black skin and his afro . . . Youre not Dominican.
And he said, over and over again, But I am. Soy dominicano (49). Such comments make

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Oscars natural physical body his black skina negative thing, meaning Oscar faces prejudice
about his body in ways he can and cannot change.
As previously stated, Oscar reads fantasy novels to escape from these prejudices. Scholar
Monica Hana affirms that fact, Genre, in the minds of Oscar and eventually Yunior, is a more
flexible narrative form than traditional historical narrative. It allows for the exploration of
alternative worlds that don't comply with traditional realism (514). However, what Oscar first
fails to see is how deeply rooted the prejudices he suffers from exist in the stories he reads to try
and escape from traditional realism.
Speculative fiction, fantasy in particular, is often accused and guilty of being whitewashed. Author and critic Cory Linquist states that this phenomenon often leads people to
viewing the genre as, derivative, escapist and commercial, with limited characterization because
it does not challenge the reader by exploring culturally relevant or significant topics such as
discrimination and persecution (5). Some of the biggest fantasy seriesWheel of Time, A Song
of Ice and Fire, and Lord of the Ringsall feature white males (and sometimes females) saving
the world. A Song of Ice and Fire takes a grittier angle on fantasy and has characters with
different skin colors. However, those characters are servants with authority or freed-slaves; both
worship and obey their white leaders. Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings have white
protagonists who fight for the light against villains who are often portrayed as dark, adhering to
the light/dark binary. In Wheel of Time, the characters battle The Dark One and his worshipers
called Dark Friends. In the first book, Eye of the World, the protagonist, Rand, battles The
Dark One. Rands weapon is a physical manifestation of light while The Dark One uses a
physical manifestation of darkness.

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Similarly, light and dark have agency in Lord of the Rings, arguably Oscars favorite
series. Light is wielded as a weapon against enemies, and the villains use shadows as a weapon.
According to author and scholar Anne C. Petty, Tolkien envisioned light as the personification
and actual embodiment of the Creator, Eru, the One, such that objects in Middle-earth containing
that light are scared and the closet one is likely to get to actual contact with the deity (291). She
says hope is literally offered as a light in dark places (291). Though light symbolizes hope, the
theme of evil is easily tracked through occurrences of the ubiquitous word shadow (99). Worse
yet, the character Melkor, whose physical form is described in terms of smoke and darkness
(99), invents evil in Tolkiens world (104). Additionally, the series protagonists all have white
skinwith the exception of Ents, who are talking, walking treesand the villains have darker
colored skin. Everything associated with the villains also has black in the name: the Black Gate,
the Black Speech, etc.
Previously, Oscar failed to distinguish these discrepancies; but, after meeting and being
abused for Ybn, he has become more aware of reality. Unlike before when he tired to lose
weight, Oscars love for Ybn is strong enough to push him into fighting for his choices. Oscar is
beaten nearly to death but tells Yunior, I kissed a girl, Yunior. I finally kissed a girl (Daz 305),
because that is what he considers important. After getting beaten and kissed, he tries to escape
back into Lord of the Rings while recovering. He got through almost the whole trilogy, but then
the line and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls and he had to stop, his head and heart
hurting too much (307). Now Oscar can see that the prejudice he faces in reality also exists in
fantasy worlds. Monica Hanna writes, Junot Daz noted the relationship between the immigrant
experience and the act of reading science fiction; he said that both require the learning of new
codes. In this sense, the text's form requires the reader to enter into the position of the immigrant

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or outsider (514). Oscar experiences this for the first time. He reads the book and feels like an
outsider, just as he does in reality. Oscar wanted to be the Dominican Tolkien (Daz 192), but
seeing dark portrayed as evil in his beloved series tarnishes that dream. Consequently, the world
he always escaped into has shattered, which is why he had to stop, his head and hurting too
much (Daz 307).
Despite this, Oscar seems to flourish. Now grounded in reality, he takes a chance on love
and dies for it, but he does not regret the choice. Before he dies, he spends time with Ybn, time
when he participates in the real world. In a final letter to his family, he says, If only Id known.
The beauty! The beauty! (335). He did not get his happily ever after, but he was happy.
Through Oscar finding love, Daz solidifies the differences between fantasy and reality.
Fantasy, while entertaining, cannot sustain a real person. The problems in fantasy are resolved
too easily. Reality, while difficult, is worth the effort in order to really exist. By using Lord of the
Rings and love, Daz shows that life comes with consequences, problems do not blow away,
but life must be lived. Furthermore, Daz tells the reader how difficult it is to escape from
prejudice and that the alternative worlds that don't comply with traditional realism (Hanna
514) into which Oscar tries escaping have the same prejudices people face in reality.

Word Count: 2,228

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Works Cited
Daz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead, 2007. Print.
Hanna, Monica. "'Reassembling The Fragments': Battling Historiographies, Caribbean
Discourse, And Nerd Genres In Junot Daz's The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao."
Callaloo 33.2 (2010): 498-520. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
Kunsa, Ashley. "History, Hair, And Reimagining Racial Categories In Junot Daz's The Brief
Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao." Critique: Studies In Contemporary Fiction 54.2 (2013):
211-224. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
Lindquist, R. C., and Cory Daniells. The T'En Exiles: An Exploration of Discrimination and
Persecution in High Fantasy Novels. N.p.: n.p., 2007. Print.

Petty, Anne C. Tolkien in the Land of Heroes: Discovering the Human Spirit. Cold Spring
Harbor, NY: Cold Spring, 2003. Print.

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Works Consulted
Jordan, Robert. Eye of the World. New York: T. Doherty Associates, 1990. Print.

Martin, George R. R. A Game of Thrones. New York: Bantam, 1996. Print.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Fellowship of the Ring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Silmarillion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977. Print.