Lizzy Wlodyga

ENG 302 Global Literature

Dr. Hart
Final Project
Psychoanalysis of Trauma and the Resulting Healing Powers of Writing
The human mind, understatedly, is a complex, brilliant network with wiring anatomically
similar amongst its own kind, but divergent in practice due to innumerable factors and
influences. No mind is comparable to another much beyond these functional parallels and the
divergence from there is endless and impossible to manage. It is possible, however, to analyze
and contrast the minds of several characters in a novel, especially if there is a measurable
component to compare to. While the trauma one suffers mentally is a major adjustment for an
individual, the process of healing is just as large of one, and determining mechanisms for this
from a psychoanalytic basis can help to explain why so many humans, despite their differences,
take similar roads to overcome their stresses. Humans fall into systematic patterns regardless of
differences in culture, gender, education, etc.and this phenomenon is at the root of the
characters trials in the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The healing agent adopted
is writing, but the way each character uses this mechanism for their personal therapies reiterates
that every person is uniquely their own. Therefore, trauma itself and the process of healing are
based in psychotic development and further dependent on cultural and societal dispositions,
which stem from integrations of ideology and subculture.
A functional definition of both subculture and ideology is useful in carrying out further
analysis of the characters in the novel. Subculture, according to Dick Hebdiges 1979 essay
Subculture: The Meaning of Style, is a form of communal and symbolic engagements within
the larger cultural system usually organized around age and class (438). It is deviant from the

dominant culture, but, often, merely in limited ways, exemplifying that perhaps even one
conceptual divergence constitutes in enough of a division. However, noting the ambiguity of
culture differentiation as a whole, further division into subcultures can lead to vagueness in
appropriate classifications. Hebdige also works to define ideology as a set of engrained cultural
beliefs, that can sometimes simply refer to common sense. Ideology is very much
individualized, but at the same time, dependent on the dominant culture, for what we know is
laid down and retraced by the dominant discourses about reality, the dominant ideologies. The
potential conflict of interest and overall complexity given by this actuality is why using trauma
and healing as a vehicle for psychoanalysis can narrow down the synthesis of these concepts and
their integration into several characters lives.
Trauma, by definition, has imposed negative connotations, and this is not without
warrant. Trauma could be an attack on the body, brain, and mind, but also on a greater
community, a culture, or the natural environmentthose places we intimately call our own
(LaLonde 201). Through this interpretation, trauma represents a concept that extends outside of
the predetermined borders of predictability and into something very much individualized.
However, the most important consideration this definition brings to mind is that although
personal trauma certainly accounts for the trauma an individual endures, there are numerous
forms of external trauma that likewise contribute. There is no fixed algorithm for determining
how a particular combination will affect an individual, but analyzing a healing mechanism can
help to identify how the absorbed traumas are pieced apart and digested by the mental barriers in
place, imposed by cultural elements. The complexity of Oscars life, thoughts, and experiences
highlight these ideas and is a great place to begin analysis.

The protagonist of the novel is Oscar Wao, an overweight, cynical, virgin who struggles
throughout his short life with the shortcomings he identifies as absolute failures. He falls in love
often and easily, encouraging his susceptibility to heartbreak and contempt for the relationships
he once held so dear. While his inadequacies are numerous and notable for his characterization,
his talents are likewise important, and something Oscar often forgets about in his limited focus
on all the things he does not have going for him. He has a very big heart and extends his
affections and considerations to people many of those around him blow off in light of various
social and cultural stereotypes. He is extremely intelligent, boasting of a likely unparalleled
knowledge of science fiction, video games, and novels. He is also a talented writer and is even
determined to finish a four-book science fiction series, as confirmed in the letter Oscars sister,
Lola, receives many months after Oscars premature death. In this letter, Oscar also promises
another book, one that contains everything Ive written on this journeyeverything I think you
will needits the cure to what ails us (Diaz 333). Oscars struggles, however, are numerous
and highly outlined in the novel. Therefore, considering his mental conditions at various points
in the novel can help to interpret why writing was Oscars chosen mechanism for healing (or lack
thereof) and what it means for his character as a whole.
Oscars mental state is highly variable throughout the novel. When Oscar is happy
mostly coincidental with him being in lovehe is often focused on bettering himself for the
object of his affections. He is still cognizant of the elements he hates about himself, but sees
them in a new light, and this is evident through Diazs stylistic devices. But Diaz does not make
things so simple. Through his narrator use, he often foreshadows the demise of Oscars brief
happiness or introduces a possibility of truth opposite to those of Oscars beliefs, and the pity for
Oscar tends to accumulate as the novel progresses, to the point where Oscars breaking points

become expected. While there are several girls who own Oscars heart throughout his short life,
many of the experiences can be summed up in a derivative of this phrase:
Without even realizing it hed fallen into one of those Lets-Be-Friends Vortexes, the
bane of nerdboys everywhere. These relationships were loves version of stay in the
stocks, in you go, plenty of misery guaranteed and what you got out of it besides
bitterness and heartbreak nobody knows. Perhaps some knowledge of self and women.
Perhaps. (41)
Therefore, when Oscar is hurting and alone, his mindset becomes increasingly cynical, resulting
in his increasing depression and reclusion. He maintains his interest in video games and reading
through much of his struggles, but his cyclic pattern of extreme happiness followed by absolute
heartbreak catch up to him in an unfortunate loss of grip on reality at a point in college. In
reference to Oscars second suicide attempt, the narrator explains:
Dude had been waiting his whole life for something just like this to happen to him, had
always wanted to live in a world of magic and mystery, but instead of taking note of the
vision and changing his ways the fuck just shook his swollen head. The train was nearer
now, and so, before he could lose his courage, he threw himself down into the darkness.
(190)
Thus, thinking aboutand to some extentendeavoring to change his lifestyle, and later
attempting suicide, all fail to offer Oscar the sense of satisfaction he so desires. So, he turns to
writing, and within that world uncovers some of the answers he had long been searching for.
Oscar becomes absorbed in his writings, especially after his first suicide attempt, and
even more so after the second, and this trend carries on for the duration of the novel. Oscar, as he

writes more, increases the amount of positive things he can hold onto and personally call his
own. The physical mark of his successesevidenced by the accumulation of his writings
brings Oscar the satisfaction he has been lacking through much of his life and transforms some
of the hardships he has endured into something beneficial and practical. A perplexing, but also
realistic, component to consider with Oscars writing is that much of itat least in terms of what
is presented to the reader in subject matterdoes not pertain directly to Oscars experiences.
Yunior expresses, after Oscar visits him unexpectedly awhile after his second suicide attempt,
that Oscar was still talking Space Operahad just finished with the first of his projected quartet
of novels, totally obsessed with it now (195). It is also interesting to consider that while writing
was Oscars escape from the harshness of his reality, and a way for him to heal, it brought about
its own failures, particularly in the actuality that nothing he wrote was physically published. Still,
the fact that he started sending his stories and novels out, but no one seemed interestedhe
kept trying and kept writing, suggests that he was still growing, still healing, still a man in
transition and on the road to improvement (263). Even when he returns to Santo Domingo to
visit La Inca in his early adulthood, she recognizes his writing obsession as a necessary endeavor
for him and criticizes those who taunt Oscar for his lack of social interaction during the trip.
While writing is remarkably important in how Oscar digests the trauma in his life and works
toward a healthier mindset, other characters also utilize it for similar outcomes, and analyzing
those situations as well can provide a firmer conclusion for the importance of this mechanism as
a universal one.
Abelard, Oscars grandfather, uses writing in a much different way than Oscar, but many
parallels are visible through comparison. Abelard was a physician and extremely intelligent man
indefatigably curious, alarmingly prodigious, and especially suited for linguistic and

computational complexity (213). He was a Brain, and this astuteness, while it contributed
much positively to his life, is ultimately, what led to his downfall, due to conflicting ideologies at
play in the world around him (214). Several weeks after Abelard refuses to allow Trujillo, the
nations dictator, to meet and defile his oldest daughter, Abelard is arrested and charged with
slander and gross calumny against the Person of the President (233). However, there is much
debate over whether Abelard was actually guilty of anything or simply a victim of a powerful
regime and its unlawful practices. The narrator discusses the ambiguity that surrounds Abelards
charge, including other ways Abelard could have secretly been conspiring against Trujillo, if
even just in his head.
Supposedly, Abelard, being the well-studied man he was, began writing a book in 1944
about Trujillo, but it was not the sort of book that displayed the dictator in good light. His book,
if we are to believe the whispers, was an expos of the supernatural roots of the Trujillo
regimeabout the Dark Powers of the President (425). The narrator goes on to explain that he
does not believe such a book ever existed, but remarks also that, none of Abelards books, not
the four he authored or the hundreds he owned, surviveall of them either lost or destroyed
every paper he had in his house was confiscated and reportedly burnednot one single example
of his handwriting remains (246). While this reality suggests that Abelard was undoubtedly the
victim of a Trujillo-based revenge scheme, there is much more at play here in consideration of
Abelards writing tendencies. Like his grandson, he wrote not simply to write, but also with a
purpose. One could argue that a book about the dark roots of a horrible dictator has much more
value than the Space Opera quartet Oscar was endeavoring, but the parallels between these
stories extend beyond that. Both men write in response to cultural influences and the presently
in-place ideologies of their respective time eras and environments. In this way, writing becomes

a coping mechanism for what these men see is wrong with society, or even their personal lives.
However, both men realize that their current dilemmas are the result of the ideologies at play
around them, and write to make use of the conclusions they gather through successive failures
and experiences.
Yunior, Oscars once roommate, sort-of friend, and complicated, intermittent lover of
Lola, is revealed to be the narrator of the novel about halfway through, providing some answers
but likewise fueling other questions as the reader attempts to decode Yunior and his knowledge
of a family he is not technically a part of. In this way, Yuniors use of writing contrasts
significantly from Abelard and Oscar, but can still uphold the same ultimate purposes if one
searches deep enough. Yunior, as a character, is Oscars foilhe is fit, charming, and sexually
active with womenand thus his perspective as the narrator provides for an interesting conflict
between the validity of characterization and the story itself. While the obvious writings of
Yunior pertain to the physical story presented, there are various parts in the novel where Yunior
writes in other ways, particularly when he lives with Oscar in college. However, even his
narration has potential to be a healing mechanism, for Yunior brings himself into the story
whenever he feels like it, tackling his own issues through the presentation of a family with a
plethora of their own.
Yuniors narration often appears to be stream-of-consciousness in essence, for he
alternates between thoughts, characters, and ideas, inconsistently and unexpectedly. Still, there
remains a chronological aspect to the novel, at least in terms of Oscars life. Even the multiple
diversions into the lives of Lola, Beli, and Abelard offer their own substance to the particular
happenings of Oscars life. Yunior remarks at one point that I should have fucking known. Dude
used to say he was cursed, used to say this a lot, and if Id really been old-school Dominican I

would have (a) listened to the idiot, and then (b) run the other way (171). In this instance, and
intermittently throughout the novel, Yunior inserts himself into the story, not merely to do so, but
with a purposeto apply his reflections, perspective, and own, if even only mediocre, analysis to
this distressing family he cannot seem to completely shake. While Yunior certainly has traumas
of his own to deal with, much of what could be considered traumatic for him deals directly with
Oscar, Lola, and their family. He rooms with Oscar after Oscars first suicide attempt and still
lives with him during the second. Yunior also has extreme love for Lola, and although he seems
happy at the novels close when it is revealed that Lola is now married with a daughter, Yunior
still laments: I wish I could say it worked out, that Oscars death brought us togetherfor about
a year [after the break up] I scromfed strange girls and alternated between Fuck Lola and these
incredibly narcissistic hopes of reconciliation that I did nothing to achieve (324). Thus,
considering the various traumas introduced into Yuniors life at the hands of Oscar and his
family, the entire novel could be seen as a coping mechanism for Yunior. He attempts to heal
through the writing process, but recognizes in the closing pages of the novelIn the end?
Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever endsthat while writing may help him to cope, he may
never be free from the traumas he has endured because they have helped to shape him into the
man he has become (331).
Writing was utilized by Oscar, Abelard, and Yunior as a way to heal from the traumas of
their particular realities, but it is important to consider further how these realities were created
and the foundation upon which they extend into each characters lives. Cultural components are
abound in the novel, and the emphasis cannot be overlooked as coincidental, or strictly related to
Diaz as an author. Culture, as noted earlier, produces subcultures, and are also the product of
integration with ideology. This can further differentiate both the various incurrences of trauma

throughout the novel and the constructions of reality each character holds dear. Ideology, then,
can begin to represent nearly anything so long as it can be integrated into the culture surrounding
the characters, for a different one surrounds each character. Abelard lives directly within the
dictatorship era of Trujillo; Oscar resides in a community that not only fails to embrace his ethnic
identity, but also his affinity for science fiction; Yuniors family was originally from Azua, and
he grew up without the mention or weight of a dreaded family curse. While each of these
realities offer cultural components, they are not the only elements that influence this cultural
bubble each character is stuck within. This is why ideology is so important, but also so incredibly
unpredictable in terms of individual influences.
As each character meets a different destiny, they create their own personal perspectives.
They can each, in their own way, accept and exude that bathing the mind in a solution of
imaginative word combinationsmetaphors, litotes, oxymora, ironies, analogies, allegories,
allusions, parables, and fablescan stimulate the mind in powerful ways (LaLonde 201). While
this quote recognizes literary devices, it offers a reality that originates at a deeper level. Exposing
the mind to any number of imaginative fantasies can produce remarkable, be it not always
positive, results. But what path a character allows themselves to walk along, reiterated yet again,
is dependable on many different components that tie together in unpredictable ways. However,
these characters individual experiences are not always so separate from their cultures trauma,
for cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a
horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their
memories forever and changing their future identity (208). Just as Abelards fate seems to have
created a cursed family succession, the traumas one member of a collective culture endures can
have lasting, sometimes enormous, influences the collective identity a culture latches onto.

Focusing on these traumas allows for the unearthing of healing, specifically healing
through writing, and how it plays a role in conscious identity and ideology. The process of
healing is variable and personal, but this does not fully reject its value in a cultural sense as well.
Given the local realities of Afro-Caribbean beliefs about health and illness, secularized,
scientific medicine proved inadequate to heal the sick, which meant that local physicians looked
to the poetic power of words and local herbal medicines to treat the whole person (Stoller 470).
While this quote does not directly correlate with the healing analysis so far presented, the
connotations present parallels that encourage a deeper understanding. There is a deliberate
suggestion that not every lapse in health can be healed with medications or cookie-cutter
therapies. People must often create their own path to health, personally design the mechanism
they should employ and then actually utilize it, day after day. The relief from trauma of all kinds
thus breaks down to benevolent retaliation, a form of self-reflection and analysis that allows a
person to discover their best coping method (LaLonde 212). It may seem strange that Oscar,
Abelard, and Yunior (even Lola, although minimally presented) all come to utilize writing as
their healing mechanism, but looking beyond the bizarreness of it all, this reality is also
comforting. There is a gentle reminder that no one is truly alone, that while healing may be
extremely individualized and a secluded process, the way humans go through it is much more
similar than one thinks.
This analysis therefore brings forth a new ideologynew in the sense that until now, the
connectedness between the characters and their therapeutic coping mechanisms was not directly
correlated to cultural, or even subcultural, ties. However, that reality is exactly what is at play in
the novel, and why it can be so beneficial to analyze the similarities between characters, even if
they seem trivial or irrelevant. The anatomic and functional qualities of the human mind might

seemingly be where all similarities end, but the reality that individuals of various cultural,
societal, and ideological perspectives can all latch onto the same healing process in dealing with
traumatic events suggests that the human race is much more identical than separate. While
cultural and ideological distinctions have been purported for centuries to differentiate the
individuals of the world, the revelation that they can likewise bring people closer together is a
welcoming reality as there is no greater time than now to begin, and nurture, this connectivity
process.

Works Cited
Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York City: Penguin Group, 2007.
Print.
During, Simon. The Cultural Studies Reader. New York City: Routledge, 2007. Print.
LaLonde, Suzanne. Trauma and Healing: Global Mental Health in J. M. G. Le Clzios Desert.
Literature and Medicine 31:2 (2013): 199-213. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.
Stoller, Paul. Storytelling and the Construction of Reality. Literature and Medicine 32:2
(2014): 466-472. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.