As I read the
final section of The Brief Wondrous Life
of Oscar Wao, I noticed that Yunior intentionally omitted certain words and
replaced them with a ___. There were a few times when this was used in place of
Ybon’s boyfriend’s name, but this could be explained by the possibility that
Yunior did not know his name. There were other times that were harder to
explain. He tells us that the Mongoose says something (301) to Oscar in his
dream, but neglects to tell us what. Yunior omits words in an area where
readers can easily surmise what the words were. In the section where Yunior
explains what happened to him and Lola (327), Yunior states, “I’d finally try
to say the words that would save us.” Then, he provides three blanks which
leaves us to surmise that the words he is omitting is “I love you.” What does
everyone else think is the purpose of these blanks?
I just thought the blanks represented a topic that Yunior had not come to terms with yet. He feels like he has to write this story, but he can still omit things as he pleases. He still has to tell the reader that the topic is there, but does not have to state it directly.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Danielle here. The blank spaces fall totally in line with the "paginas blancas" motif that has run throughout the novel. Maybe these spaces are blank because Yunior's sources (Oscar's journal?) are incomplete. It shows us the vulnerability of the narrator when he is accounting for a story like this in a secondhand sort of way. I personally like the imperfect or missing details of this novel.
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