Throughout Latino culture, we can see machismo. In the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, we see aspects of machismo as well, especially through the main character of Oscar. In the novel, Oscar embraces this machismo. He is pushed onto girls at parties and dances with them. Then, he ends up having two girlfriends. The machismo is very common and prevalent in Latino cultures. I saw this when I lived in the Dominican Republic. To me, it felt like men were more forward. It was like they expected that I would want to dance with them, want to go out with them, or even want to marry them.
This makes me wonder how the women feel about this machismo. It made me feel uncomfortable. I did not want to marry someone. I didn't want to dance, especially the way they were, and I did not want to go out with someone I barely knew. Now, is this simply how I feel because it is much different than my culture? There are some forward men but it has never made me as uncomfortable as it did when I was there. Do women enjoy being expected to comply with a man's request? Or are they reluctant but feel as though they need to comply because it is so "normal?"
One other aspect of machismo that is found in the novel is the rejection. Oscar has an expectation that the girls want to be with him. However, he then decides to choose one and then she rejects him. He is surprised and hurt by the rejection, as would most people. However, part of me wonders if he is hurt by the rejection because of the expectation she should want to be with him. It seems that with the machismo comes the expectation that the men can be forward because the women will accept. So what happens when the man is rejected? Is this a sign of machismo changing, that women are becoming more comfortable with making the choice themselves? Or, are they enjoying the power of challenging the machismo of the man that is forward with them?
This makes me wonder how the women feel about this machismo. It made me feel uncomfortable. I did not want to marry someone. I didn't want to dance, especially the way they were, and I did not want to go out with someone I barely knew. Now, is this simply how I feel because it is much different than my culture? There are some forward men but it has never made me as uncomfortable as it did when I was there. Do women enjoy being expected to comply with a man's request? Or are they reluctant but feel as though they need to comply because it is so "normal?"
One other aspect of machismo that is found in the novel is the rejection. Oscar has an expectation that the girls want to be with him. However, he then decides to choose one and then she rejects him. He is surprised and hurt by the rejection, as would most people. However, part of me wonders if he is hurt by the rejection because of the expectation she should want to be with him. It seems that with the machismo comes the expectation that the men can be forward because the women will accept. So what happens when the man is rejected? Is this a sign of machismo changing, that women are becoming more comfortable with making the choice themselves? Or, are they enjoying the power of challenging the machismo of the man that is forward with them?
I wonder how women feel as well. My family seems to not like machismo. My mother is divorced from a man who had too much Machismo. He thought he could get away with everything but my mother didn't. I guess it all depends whether you can handle machismo or not. Some woman love it and others do not. In my experience, girls want the guy to be the initiator. They want to be the ones that are given attention. Knowing this and seeing my mother's reaction to machismo puts me in a place where I will wonder.
ReplyDeleteKrista, I think you bring up an interesting point in looking at the reactions the women in this novel have to machismo culture. As I said in my blog this week, it's interesting to look at the differences in how men and women view love. Most men want any girl they can get a hold of,even if it's more than one girl at a time. However, women want to find just one "true" love. In this way, then, Oscar plays the relationship role that girls usually play in wanting to find a "true" love and the women are playing the opposite. I think this is a sign of the women becoming more independent and challenging the stereotype, although it would be interesting to ask Diaz what he was thinking when he wrote the book!
ReplyDeleteKrista, this is a great blog post. There is much about the women in a machismo society that is missing in the novels we have read for class. It would have been interesting to have the story of Oscar be from the point of view of his sister, or his mother. What would machismo look like to them? Especially his mother, since she knew all about the wants of men in that society. I wonder how you would have reacted had you been part of the novel. Having spent time in the DR, you have first hand experience about the culture. Did this make you read the novel differently? Would you have changed what happened?
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