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Dramatic Irony
Flashbacks
Explanation and Analysis—Beli's Childhood:
Chapter 3 of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a flashback to Beli’s upbringing. Hypatia Belicia Cabral was born in the mid-20th century and grew up in the Dominican Republic. She is described as remarkably beautiful, but she becomes an outcast at her private school because of her dark skin and foster family. Beli has romantic dreams of being swept off her feet, and she learns that she can manipulate boys with her beauty. Eventually, though, she is taken advantage of by Jack Pujols, the boy she’s been pursuing.
Yunior explains that Beli felt suffocated by the island and longed to move elsewhere and be on her own. After dramatic and tragic episodes, Beli ultimately does make it to America. But life there is not the dream that she’d imagined it to be.
The flashback to Beli’s life furthers the sense of inevitability and circularity surrounding the family demise. By showing readers the promise that Beli’s life once held, Yunior suggests that Oscar’s and Lola’s hopes will be crushed, too. This is heightened by the way that Yunior tells Beli’s story: he likens her to a princess and a star of a romantic comedy who has big dreams of love. By comparing Beli’s early life to her life in the present-day of the novel, the flashback suggests the futility of hope.
Related Themes:
Flashbacks
Explanation and Analysis—Abelard Cabral:
In Chapter 5 of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Yunior flashes back to the life of Abelard Cabral, Oscar and Lola’s grandfather. Abelard was the mother of Beli and is considered to be the reason that fukú plagues the family. The Cabral family was wealthy and had a high level of status in the Dominican Republic. But Abelard’s quiet dislike for the Trujillo dictatorship—and his refusal to hand his daughter to Trujillo—ultimately made him a target. He was imprisoned and killed, and the family lost their luck.
Yunior frames this as one potential start to the story of Oscar’s life. Indeed, this flashback is crucial to contextualizing Oscar’s connection to the Trujillo regime. For much of the novel, Oscar’s connection to El Jefe is abstract or distant: Trujillo's dictatorship is the reason for the curse, but beyond that, the link between the two is indirect. Here, though, Yunior presents the actual closeness between Oscar and Trujillo. By seeing Oscar’s grandfather interact with the dictator, readers can understand that there are not very many degrees of separation between the novel’s present and past. And Oscar’s relatives were even closer to the dictatorship. While the dictatorship is an abstract entity to Oscar, it was a fixture of daily life to his relatives.
Related Themes:
