Oscar Wao as Lord of the Rings?

Despite Yunior’s claim that their world “ain’t no…Middle Earth” (194), I would argue that the connections between Oscar’s world and Tolkien’s Middle Earth run deeper than a mere attempt to show Oscar’s (and Yunior’s) interest in fantasy.

We’ve said that the phrase “The only way out is in”(209) refers to Yunior’s and Lola’s attempts to understand how fukú has functioned in the de Leon family by going back and tracing its origins and effects. But the phrase also reminds me of Frodo’s journey to destroy the Ring. He must do this to destroy Sauron and his forces of evil, who will otherwise overrun Middle Earth and basically obliterate everything. In order to destroy the Ring, Frodo must return to where the Ring was created –back into Mordor to Mount Doom. Thus for Yunior, Lola, and Frodo, “The only way out is in.”

After reading Bennett’s post about Beli, I realized that most people’s feelings toward Beli parallel my own toward Smeagol. Throughout “The Two Towers” movie, I felt awful for Smeagol – tortured by Sauron’s henchmen and tormented every moment by Gollum, the evil half of his personality from whom he seems to want to be free. However, by “The Return of the King,” I despised him for what he was doing to Frodo, leading him into the gigantic spider’s lair to be eaten alive, and especially for what he was doing to Sam (because nobody messes with Sam), trying to turn Frodo against him. But even though I hated what Gollum had become, I never wanted him to die the way that he did. I still felt terrible for him because of what he experienced – much the way most of us feel toward Beli because of her own unspeakably awful life of abuse.

Beli and Smeagol have alike endings with similar causes. Yunior says, “Beli [had] been waiting for something like her body her whole life….Like the accidental discovery of the One Ring” (94). Technically, Bilbo Baggins stumbles across the Ring, but Smeagol has found it first. And in a way, both of these discoveries destroy these characters. Beli’s beauty (in the Dominican sense) leads to her abuse, and her body (SPOILERS!) basically destroys her and kills her. And Smeagol’s discovery leads to the twisting of his mind, the corruption of his soul, and his awful death – all for the sake of “his precious.”

Maybe the world of Oscar Wao resembles Middle Earth more than Yunior thinks.