by Megan Pierce

Created on: June 01, 2010

Diaz’s novel begins with a significant reference to a fukú, or a curse, that was originally thought to be brought over by the Europeans upon the discovery of Hispaniola, now modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This fukú was “the Curse and the Doom of the New World” and “the fukú was real as shit, something your everyday person could believe in.” Diaz places a great historical implication with a consistent mention of fukú in relation to the era of the Trujillo regime and also to the people of his novel who were affected by Trujillo’s dictatorship.

            The fukú, according to Diaz, is not a mere aspect of ancient history, but it is as real as the treacherous Dominican Dictator of whom “no one knows whether Trujillo was the curse’s servant or its master…but it was clear he and it had an understanding.” The novel becomes most pungent when the true history of Rafael Trujillo affects a significant female character of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” Belicia Cabral. Trujillo ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961 and became a ruthless dictator who sadistically administrated over every aspect of society by rape, torture, mass murders, and complete genocide. According to Diaz, “it was believed, even in educated circles, that anyone who plotted against Trujillo would incur a fukú most powerful, down to the seventh generation and beyond.” There is an obvious reason why Diaz would implement such a spiritually evoking superstition, and he explains that “no matter what you believe, fukú believes in you,” Because of this high importance on a curse, Diaz sets up his novel as though everything that happens in The Brief Wondrous Life happens because of fukú. He frames this ideology after the historical events of the Dominican Republic so that all of the evils and tumults of the Trujillo Regime greatly affect each individual character in a negative way, just as real life happened as a result of Trujillo’s reign.

Diaz cites the historical background in his extensive footnotes “for those of you who missed your mandatory two seconds of Dominican history” and explains the history of Trujillo’s dictatorship as an era of massacre, rape, torture, and the extinguishing of identity. The historical context of the novel reflects

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