An Essay On Being An Outsider

Being an outsider is not an easy thing and that is proven almost everyday in some way. An outsider comes in all shapes, and forms no matter the location whether it is school, home, work, etc. an outsider faces the constant day to day struggle of trying to fit in with their surroundings. In the novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” written by Junot Díaz, the effects- mentally, physically, and emotionally- of outsiderness can be seen in many ways. In his novel Díaz shows how different things can make someone an outsider, and how that affects the person’s decisions, and way of life.
The novel beginning with the character Oscar Wao, Díaz introduce Oscar as an outsider, but he was not always an outsider. It says “Our hero was not one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about—he wasn’t no home-run hitter or a fly bachatero,not a playboy with a million hots on his jock. And except for one period early in his life, dude never had much luck with the females (how very Un-Dominican of him) ”.In this quote Díaz tells how Oscar at one point in his life he did fit in with the Dominican culture, but after that it all went downhill for Oscar. In the quote it can also be seen that the characteristics of a Dominican that Díaz listed- the playboy, and sports athlete- to describe what Oscar should be are stereotypes that don’t fit a lot of Dominicans, not just Oscar. Also with this quote Díaz is showing how the world sees how a culture should be. Díaz is proving how when someone thinks of a Dominican person they think of someone that is a player or someone that is an athlete, yes many Dominicans are athletes
Oscar and Lola both faced individual challenges of being an outsider that affected and changed their thinking about a lot of things. Both Oscar and Lola tried hard to fit in and please those around them but it did not always work out like