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When writing about Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), several scholars focus on its treatment of masculinity, immigration, and comic book nerddom, as well as its engagement with a Caribbeanist literary tradition. However, none have addressed the clear connection between masculinity and a distinctly circum-Atlantic discourse of magic. References to a curse engendered in the arrival of captive slaves to Hispaniola, supernatural animal-like figures that appear in the sugarcane fields, Afro-Dominican spiritual and medicinal practices, and an African Diaspora literary tradition deeply mark Díaz's novel as a text borne out of an Atlantic and Caribbeanist imaginary. In this article, I propose that Oscar Wao adopts the language of a circum-Atlantic supernatural to critique the traumatic history associated with hyper-masculinity and which haunts both island and diaspora Dominicans. Specifically, the novel uncovers a Caribbeanist hyper-masculine ethos emblematized by ruthless Dominican potentates Rafael L. Trujillo (1891–1961) and Joaquín Balaguer (1906–2002). A disenfranchised citizenry often discursively transforms exorbitant power into predatory otherworldly entities and forces. This malevolent energy tends to manifest itself in communities that are particularly vulnerable to the kind of socio-economic inequality and political exclusion that Trujillo and Balaguer exemplified. Using close reading analysis; critical gender theory; Dominican, Caribbean, and African Diaspora critical tradition and historiography; and a consideration of the Columbus Lighthouse Memorial in Santo Domingo as a totem of this masculinist ethos, I show that Oscar Wao both records and subverts this male-centric discourse from an interventionist and nostalgic diaspora perspective.
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