University of New Orleans

Berman, Lauren

Ellipsis 
Volume 46 From Lockdown to Rebirth Article 2 
2021 
Watching through the Glass Coffin of the Gallagh Man 
Lauren Berman 
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis 
Recommended Citation 
Berman, Lauren (2021) "Watching through the Glass Coffin of the Gallagh Man," Ellipsis: Vol. 46 , Article 2. 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46428/ejail.46.02 
Available at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis/vol46/iss1/2 
This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at 
ScholarWorks@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ellipsis by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UNO. 
For more information, please contact scholarworks@uno.edu. 
2020 Vassar Miller Poetry Award  
Honorable Mention 
 
 
Watching Through the Glass Coffin of the Gallagh Man 
by Lauren Berman 
 
 
Fetal, crossed arms at his chest,   
face crushed, turned outwards,  
his teeth settle as sediment 
at the back of his throat.  
 
I sit here my eyes trapped  
in the leather of his skin,  
how it falls back and twists fraying 
from his bones.  
Like bark, he morphs  
now a tree elemental in a glass box. 
His death a sacrifice to shift the season to spring.   
All our faces like stars bore through 
the folds in his flesh.  


English

Watching through the Glass Coffin of the Gallagh Man

Antoinette, Michelle

Ellipsis 
Volume 46 From Lockdown to Rebirth Article 4 
2021 
(as if only we’ve come back again) 
Michelle Antoinette 
University of New Orleans, New Orleans 
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis 
Recommended Citation 
Antoinette, Michelle (2021) "(as if only we’ve come back again)," Ellipsis: Vol. 46 , Article 4. 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46428/ejail.46.04 
Available at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis/vol46/iss1/4 
This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at 
ScholarWorks@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ellipsis by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UNO. 
For more information, please contact scholarworks@uno.edu. 
 
 
 
 
(as if only we’ve come back again) 
by Michelle Antoinette 
 
 
… found bleeding into a swarm, a step away from a pit—empty 
tuna cans and condom wraps or to build a fire 
 
ask for this 
Secret Crick 
 
a lip-locked slither prying mountains’ gritty fold, dragging mountain down to this twice 
-told shore, a dam, poise in the tented pitch 
 
—listen slept on splintered ground 
when we woke. This  
 
was how      the river                                    broke. 
 
When the copperhead, when the meadow bows, slip 
into this handsewn skirt of ivory and sunset and lapis lazuli 
and we’ll cross the tributary by foot 
 
 


(as if only we’ve come back again)

Staricka, Jessica

Ellipsis 
Volume 46 From Lockdown to Rebirth Article 19 
2021 
Decades 
Jessica Staricka 
University of New Orleans 
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis 
Recommended Citation 
Staricka, Jessica (2021) "Decades," Ellipsis: Vol. 46 , Article 19. 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46428/ejail.46.19 
Available at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis/vol46/iss1/19 
This Fiction is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at 
ScholarWorks@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ellipsis by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UNO. 
For more information, please contact scholarworks@uno.edu. 
 
 
Decades 
By Jessica Staricka 
 
 
She flashes through her vanity mirror like a ghost. Her bedroom door squeaks. Did it ever 
do that before? The stairs stick to her feet and make a dry smack as she descends. She slides into 
slippers at the bottom step. Scuba snores in his kennel. She doesn’t scratch his ears as she passes. 
Audrey is eleven. Her mom’s bedroom has a plastic accordion door, brittle, an artifact from 
some decade before Audrey was born. It’s brown, but it looks navy blue in the moonlight that 
seeps into the wooden house from curtainless windows. She touches the plastic handle. This part 
always makes her heart do jumping-jacks. 
But she has a backup plan. If her mom wakes, Audrey will crawl into bed with her, quake 
beneath the sheets, and whisper about a bad dream. Believable. She really does have bad dreams. 
To prep for the backup plan, she kicks one purple slipper back toward the bottom of the stairs and 
musses up her hair as if she’s been asleep. 
She slides the bedroom door open and finds her mom, a breathing hill of sheets. A tiny 
light blinks in a corner. The room smells thick, oily, like ancient lipstick that could only be maroon. 
As she passes clusters of socks and pantyhose, she flashes through this vanity mirror, too, and 
looks clammy, washed out, porcelain hiding a hammering heart. 
Audrey tugs open her mom’s leather purse. She pulls out her camera. Then she exits and 
unfolds the accordion door shut behind her. 
 
*** 
 
Audrey uprights her bike from the dewy lawn and pedals down the driveway, then past 
chirping frogs and crickets on a crunching gravel township road. Reeds and fence posts scroll by. 
Balmy night air fills her. The camera bounces against her hip in her hoodie pocket. 
She thinks of the old plastic accordion door and of decades. She’s only started her second. 
She’s in the same decade as when she’ll be sixteen, and eighteen, and twenty. Sometime later this 
decade, she’ll drive. She’ll kiss someone. She’ll go to college. 
Maybe in this decade her mother will find a boyfriend. Maybe he’ll take Audrey on 
nighttime walks like her father did. Or maybe he’ll try, but she won’t go with. 
Patches of moonlight blink up from ditch water. The swamp smells frothy. 
Tears roll down her face and under her jaw and over her chest and make her skin itch so 
maddeningly that she almost brakes to stop and wipe them away. 
 
 
She pedals faster. She hates the new decade. The new decade is cold and uncomfortable. The old 
decade was warm, full of her father’s smiles. When and why did she start thinking “mother” and 
“father” instead of “mom” and “dad”? Would this decade be formal? All curt and polite? The old 
decade was different. It was soft. Until it ended with one big rudeness. 
Audrey fondles the camera in her pocket. She needs to capture the echoes of that decade 
before the new one devours them. She’s been capturing them. Her mother doesn’t know it, but her 
camera is filling with photos of pets and farm sheds and favorite trees and stuffed animals that 
could disappear with the previous decade, the first decade, the best decade. 
She rides up a gravel curve and onto a lawn. Just outside of the shadow of the church tower, 
she finds a glowing new headstone at the end of a row. She snaps photos of her dad’s name and 
the four decades he lived in. The letters shine. He loved moonlight. 
 


Decades

Oliva, Josie

Ellipsis 
Volume 46 From Lockdown to Rebirth Article 26 
2021 
Intimacy Coaching 
Josie Oliva 
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis 
Recommended Citation 
Oliva, Josie (2021) "Intimacy Coaching," Ellipsis: Vol. 46 , Article 26. 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46428/ejail.46.26 
Available at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis/vol46/iss1/26 
This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at 
ScholarWorks@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ellipsis by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UNO. 
For more information, please contact scholarworks@uno.edu. 
2020 Ella V. Schwing Award for Best Essay in First-Year Writing, ENGL 1158 
 
 
Intimacy Coaching 
by Josie Oliva 
 
 
 Suck it up and straddle him. In retrospect, it’s quite a comical phrase, but I was certainly 
daunted by such  instruction while mustering up the courage to kiss someone whom, at that time, 
I hardly knew. I was given this order by a dear friend and mentor of mine while choreographing 
an intimate scene, and it became somewhat of our catchphrase for the remainder of our play. As 
an experienced actor and director herself, Brittany always had a devious plan for pushing me out 
of my comfort zone, even if it meant taunting me with absurdly suggestive comments. 
When I first heard about auditions for a local theatre’s production of Bonnie and Clyde 
the Musical, I was excited to finally be presented with an opportunity to build my acting résumé. 
I auditioned for the lead role (along with several other women), not at all expecting to even be 
considered for the part. I simply wanted to showcase my talents for the future reference of the 
board of directors. I was ecstatic when I received the cast list after a grueling week of 
anticipation, but I didn’t know exactly what I had gotten myself into until I researched my role. 
Bonnie and Clyde the Musical: complete with an extensive number of stage kisses and a hot-and-
heavy sex scene. I was open to the challenge of embodying such a mature character as Bonnie 
Parker, but I was not prepared to meet my director’s expectations. Though we had never worked 
with each other before, my co-lead and I were given free rein on the blocking of our intimate 
scenes, but what good does that do when neither of us is comfortable staging these interactions? 
There were many times when we would be deep into a scene or song and disrupt our rhythm by 
breaking character to skirt the stage directions. Needless to say, our director lost patience with 
our stalling. We were becoming frustrated ourselves, but no matter how hard we tried, we simply 
couldn’t manage the kiss. It wasn’t until I was approached by my mentor, Brittany Bourque, who 
had been trained in intimacy coaching, that we began to block the scenes. I had never heard of 
this type of directing, but through a series of private workshops, we finally staged our intimate 
scenes in a manner that was comfortable for both me and my partner. I think we even surprised 
the rest of the cast when we began incorporating the blocking into rehearsals, as they hadn’t yet 
seen us progress past our initial awkwardness. With Brittany’s meticulous instruction, my co-
lead and I were able to develop our characters through interactions that looked and felt natural. 
Considering our substantial progress, I’m led to wonder why the presence of an intimacy coach 
was not established from the beginning of rehearsals. For the sake of realistic and ethical 
performances, I believe intimacy directors should be deemed a necessary part of the production 
team when the performance involves intimate interactions.  
 Intimacy coaching, itself, was spurred from the use of violence in film and theatre. Fight 
director David Brimmer stated that violence is a part of human nature, and therefore exhibiting 
aggression on stage must be made to look realistic (Dominus). Considering the need for realism, 
it is the responsibility of the fight choreographer to stage the combat in a manner that protects the 
actors involved. Likewise, an intimacy coach must direct the actors through the safest means of 
contact, a process which begins by first establishing boundaries. These boundaries are the 
foundation of the choreography and are necessary for creating a scene that looks natural. For my 
co-lead and I, Brittany introduced Extreme Stage Physicality (ESP), a technique developed by 
 
 
 
fight director Adam Noble. Noble’s technique begins by having the actors engage in simple, non-
sensual contact i.e. holding hands or sitting just close enough that the knees touch. This 
establishes a physical connection that allows the actors to feel comfortable with each other 
without the pressure of performing the actual choreography. Then, the actors and coach will 
discuss where and how they are comfortable with being touched. For instance, I’m ticklish, so 
during this step, I let my partner know what things would trigger that reaction. Once all 
boundaries are set, the coach and actors may begin choreographing, usually by start-stop pacing 
to ensure the safety and well-being of the actors. For personal touch, Noble also incorporated a 
mini-guide to stage violence into ESP, which to some coaches proves just as useful as intimacy 
techniques.  
 Not only are intimacy directors requested to mediate physicality, they are also called on 
to offer emotional support to actors. Years after Noble’s techniques were established, Tonia Sina 
and her associates, Siobhan Richardson and Alicia Rodis, founded Intimacy Directors 
International. Spurred by their own intimacy horror stories, the women created the Pillars 
program, establishing it as “the core protocol of IDI” (Purcell). Context, communication, 
consent, and choreography were the original four pillars of the program and aimed to provide a 
guide for directing physical contact. The recently added fifth pillar, closure, was set to provide 
actors and directors with a debriefing after each rehearsal of an intimate scene or other 
potentially traumatizing role. According to the Intimacy Directors website, IDI enhances 
directors’ skills in movement and body but also certifies them in fields such as “consent, sexual 
harassment, … [and] mental health first aid.” Co-founder Alicia Rodis explained that directors 
are not therapists or counselors, but they know what resources to provide when someone is 
having a mental crisis (Purcell). Further, closure was named a pillar in order to help actors 
reconcile themselves with the mindset of their characters, especially when the role is emotionally 
or mentally taxing. This allows actors to “walk away” from a role and proves that winding down 
after a performance is just as important as getting into character (Purcell).  
 The accessibility of resources like ESP and Pillars begs the question of why it has taken 
so long for intimacy directors to be incorporated as necessary elements of production teams. As 
job opportunities for properly trained crew members open, researchers point to the recent 
outbreak of sexual harassment allegations in the film, television, and theatre industries. It is 
believed that the #MeToo movement in Hollywood has spurred an awareness in actors and 
directors alike, leading to an increase in jobs for certified intimacy coaches. As for why these 
jobs have only now become available, directors and producers may argue that hiring such 
coaches is an unnecessary cost. This also correlates with the industry’s “do-it-yourself” ideology, 
the belief that intimacy should and can be handled by the actors involved. Considering the nature 
of the allegations, perhaps effective mediation is overlooked when it comes to intimate 
interactions on camera and on stage. Rather, actors are given vague, unproductive, and 
potentially harmful instructions on how to maneuver contact-heavy scenes, thus increasing the 
chances of sexual harassment and injury. Sources, such as Actor CEO, recognize that directors 
“may think that implementing structure around intimate scenes will squelch the actor’s creative 
impulse,” but, on the contrary, creativity is heightened when intimacy protocols like ESP and 
Pillars are applied (Zien). By the guidance of intimacy coaches, actors may be further immersed 
in an environment which cultivates authenticity and integrity in performance. 
 
 
 
As an actress myself, it’s undoubtedly uncomfortable and sometimes embarrassing to 
stop in the middle of a scene to confirm a partner’s consent; but awkward as it may be, it’s an 
imperative step in the developmental process. With the appropriate supervision, the 
choreography and chemistry may flourish into a performance that is exquisitely fluid and 
organic. This is why I too would like to be certified in stage intimacy. I want to share my 
experiences with actors who, like me, may need someone to break down an intimate scene. I 
want to build the vision of the body and voice in ways that are expressive of natural emotion. 
With the entertainment industry becoming increasingly explicit, there is a promising demand for 
intimacy directors, and I hope to contribute to the performing community by means of producing 
truthful and magnificent art. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Works Cited 
Dominus, Susan. “Not Just a Fight Director, but a Fight-to-the-Death Director.” The New York 
Times, The New York Times, 20 Feb. 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/theater 
/newsandfeatures/not-just-a-fight-director-but-a-fighttothedeath-director.html. 
 
Purcell, Carey. “Intimate Exchanges.” AMERICAN THEATRE, 24 Oct. 2018, 
www.americantheatre.org/2018/10/23/intimate-exchanges/. 
 
Zien, Carly. “#MeToo and Acting: Why Intimacy Coaching Is Essential.” Actor CEO, 17 Apr. 
2019, actorceo.com/metoo-and-acting-why-intimacy-coaching-is-essential/


Intimacy Coaching

Cape, John

Ellipsis 
Volume 46 From Lockdown to Rebirth Article 3 
2021 
The Ways I Could Be Held 
John Cape 
University of New Orleans 
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis 
Recommended Citation 
Cape, John (2021) "The Ways I Could Be Held," Ellipsis: Vol. 46 , Article 3. 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46428/ejail.46.03 
Available at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis/vol46/iss1/3 
This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at 
ScholarWorks@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ellipsis by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UNO. 
For more information, please contact scholarworks@uno.edu. 
 
 
 
 
The Ways I Could Be Held 
by Jack Cape 
 
 
 
 
Sometimes —  
(Forgive me) 
 
I think of all the ways I could be held. 
 
 
If I were to be baptized in the blue-green waters of the Aegean tomorrow, 
Surely there would be hands placed beneath me — 
 
 
So I could float.  
 
 
The musky embrace of a new lover. 
The gentle moment when he lays his head upon my chest. 
 
 
It all seems so fantastical now. 
 
 
A faraway castle  
In a distant land.  
 
 
 


The Ways I Could Be Held

Lavidalie, Sofia

Ellipsis 
Volume 46 From Lockdown to Rebirth Article 24 
2021 
“The proper path of Dominican male-itude”: Gendered Violence, 
Accountability, and Male Perspective in The Brief Wondrous Life 
of Oscar Wao 
Sofia Lavidalie 
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis 
Recommended Citation 
Lavidalie, Sofia (2021) "“The proper path of Dominican male-itude”: Gendered Violence, Accountability, 
and Male Perspective in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," Ellipsis: Vol. 46 , Article 24. 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46428/ejail.46.24 
Available at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis/vol46/iss1/24 
This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at 
ScholarWorks@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ellipsis by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UNO. 
For more information, please contact scholarworks@uno.edu. 
2020 Quarante Club Prize  
 
 
 
 “The proper path of Dominican male-itude”: Gendered Violence, Accountability, and 
Male Perspective in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao 
by Sofia Lavidalie 
 
The immigrant narrative in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao happens largely 
within the metafiction of the novel, with self-proclaimed player Yunior omnisciently narrating 
the stories of Oscar and his family. As Oscar finds himself living out the same tragedies that his 
mother, Beli, once lived through (a result of fukú, the narrative will remind you), we see the 
contrast in how Yunior narrates two similar but different gendered narratives. In framing The 
Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao through a masculinist lens, the story ends up awarding 
empathy to male trauma and female trauma unevenly. 
The backstory of Beli, who was raised and socialized in a heavily patriarchal society, is 
told entirely by Yunior. This signifies Beli’s lack of agency as a woman. Even as an adult, years 
removed from her hometown in Santo Domingo, the effects of the gendered violence she once 
suffered reverberated through her life. This materializes in two ways: her obsession with her 
appearance and her relationship with her daughter, Lola. Lola, on the other hand, narrates her 
own story entirely by herself. She openly acknowledges the workings of male violence in her 
life, and she rebels against it. Unlike her mother, she has agency. The narration signifies this 
through the fact that Yunior’s omniscience does not extend to her. 
Because of this, Lola’s narrative contrasts heavily with Beli’s. While Lola makes no 
excuses for those who hurt her, Beli’s narrative is told somewhat through a context of blame. It 
focuses extensively on Beli’s adolescent body, with Yunior even pausing the narrative to address 
it directly, saying, “Even your humble Watcher, reviewing her old pictures, is struck by what a 
fucking babe she was.” As she is shamed for being the neighborhood “tetúa,” she is also shamed, 
in a sense, by the narrator (Díaz 92). There are several instances of what could be categorized as 
male abuse towards Beli and other adolescent girls that are disregarded as such. In the case of 
Beli, the story is framed in such a way that you are led to believe she deserves such abuse. One 
instance sees a middle-aged dentist slip a note to the newly developed Beli, saying, “‘I want to 
see you,’” in spite of Beli being a young teenager. Yunior goes to extensive lengths to justify 
this, dwelling on the dentist’s, “fat wife who ordered a cake from La Inca almost every month, 
either for one of her seven children or her first-some cousins (but most likely for her and her 
alone)” (Díaz 93). The implication is that the state of women’s bodies entitles men to certain 
actions against them. Because the dentist’s wife is fat, she deserves to be cheated on. Because 
Beli has large breasts, she deserves to be sexually harassed. Yunior treats Beli with a level of 
undeserved accountability for her interactions with gendered violence. He applies a sense of 
agency to her story that she does not really have—she is a child; her interactions with male 
violence are not her own fault—and in doing so, removes any agency she actually has from the 
equation. 
The narrative does the opposite with Oscar’s story. While Beli is held accountable when 
she should not be, Oscar is not held accountable for things he is in direct control of. Even as 
Yunior the character continuously implores Oscar to improve himself, Yunior the narrator 
 
 
continuously sympathizes with him and ignores his acts of violence towards women. Though he 
acknowledges the circumstances leading to Oscar’s unsuccessful interactions with women—his 
weight, his nerdiness, his refusal to be social—he still talks about Oscar as if he is being denied 
something he deserves. When Oscar befriends a local girl, Ana, Yunior dwells on Oscar’s 
presence in the “bane of nerdboys everywhere,” the, “Let’s-Be-Friends Vortex,” commonly 
referred to as the friend zone (Díaz 41). “‘Poor Oscar,’” Yunior says, as if Oscar has been 
somehow slighted. He seems to believe that Oscar, in spite of all his shortcomings, is owed more 
romantic success than he has achieved, and his failing to do so is not his own failing, but a 
failing of luck, a failing on the part of the universe. When Oscar has his first taste of success with 
women, Yunior does not account it to his weight loss or his decision to “rein in his lunatic heart” 
(Díaz 283). Yunior believes, “Ybón…was the Higher Power’s last-ditch attempt to put him back 
on the proper path of Dominican male-itude” (Díaz 283). Ybón is not explored as a character 
with her own psyche and needs, but as a device put forth by the universe to subvert Oscar’s 
failings.  
Yunior’s narration, despite acknowledging the workings of gendered violence in the 
characters’ lives, also ignores the fact that Oscar is a perpetrator of male violence and sexism. 
This reoccurs throughout the book in his threatening violence towards the boyfriends of his love 
interests, his violent fantasies about the women he lusts after, and his disregard for Ybón’s safety 
when pursuing her. The first instance of this occurs early in the book, when Oscar feels unearned 
resentment towards his sister’s attractive friends for not reciprocating his interest in them. He 
fantasizes about one girl, Maritza, being interested in him, and having the opportunity to brush 
her off as an “ignorant bitch” (Díaz 27). These fantasies continue into his relationship with Ana, 
although they grow more violent, as he fantasizes about, “let[ting] Ana find [her boyfriend] 
hanging from a light fixture in his apartment, his tongue a swollen purple bladder in his mouth” 
(Díaz 43). Later, he even acts on these urges, stealing a gun from his uncle and standing outside 
of Ana’s boyfriend’s home with the intention of killing him. Again, in college, when he is 
interested in another girl, Jenni, his unreciprocated feelings lead him to violence. He walks in on 
her having sex with another man and, in a fit of rage, calls her a “whore” and “attacked her walls, 
tearing down her posters and throwing her books everywhere” (Díaz 187). Though he is 
punished for his actions, the narrative does little to condemn him, as in all his cases of violence. 
Consistently, Yunior places Oscar in contrast to the abusive, violent boyfriends of the girls he 
pines after, but Oscar is not really all that different from them. The only difference is the lack of 
agency the narrative supposes for Oscar: it is not his fault that he is violent; he is only reacting to 
the unfairness of the universe in not giving him the sexual and romantic success he is owed. He 
cannot be held accountable for his actions. This is the masculinist perspective. 
Though Oscar and Beli’s narratives parallel each other, Oscar’s narrative pivots from 
hers at the most important moment, and this is what leads to his death. After Beli’s first beating, 
when somebody that she loves is put into harm’s way (her unborn child), she relents. La Inca 
asks, “‘Would you like me to call your Gangster?’” (Díaz 154). Beli says no. After the death of 
her child, Beli turns away from her love, immigrates to New York, and survives. Similarly, when 
Ybón kisses Oscar, and her boyfriend beats him up, Oscar is given a chance to go back to 
America. Somebody that he loves is put into harm’s way, too, with Ybón’s boyfriend, “put[ting] 
his .44 Magnum in her vagina and ask[ing] her who she really loved” (Díaz 304). Still, Oscar 
continues pursuing her. Even when she begs him not to, even when she tells him that her 
 
 
boyfriend will kill both of them for his actions, Oscar stalks her and puts her directly in danger of 
being killed by her boyfriend.  
Oscar’s shortcomings are consistently excused as being a result of fukú. This narrative 
device provides a way of viewing the parallels between himself and his mother in a way that 
absolves Oscar of any responsibility.  Because of fukú, Oscar is supposedly predetermined to 
repeat his mother’s tragic narrative. His mother’s narrative, however, hinges largely on the 
gendered violence she experiences as a woman. As a male, Oscar cannot organically follow this 
same pathway, so in a sense, he creates fukú for himself. While Beli’s misfortune comes to her 
naturally, beyond her control, Oscar’s comes mostly because of things he can control but 
chooses not to. For instance, both of their narratives depend largely on their body issues. While 
Beli has no choice in the sudden growth of her breasts, Oscar has a choice in his weight and 
simply decides to follow the path of romantic misfortune. In the end, his compulsive need to feed 
into his family’s curse surpasses his mother’s tragic narrative as he eventually causes his own 
death. 
The three central characters of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao all grapple with 
gendered violence, but the specific experience of female trauma exists outside the bounds of 
Yunior’s understanding. It exists outside of his language. When he does approach it, his 
fundamental misunderstanding of the experience leads him to place undeserved accountability on 
women regarding their own trauma. This also leads him to mishandle the women in Oscar’s 
narrative and, by extension, fail to acknowledge the true nature of fukú in Oscar’s life as a self-
fulfilling prophecy. 
 
 
 
 
Works Cited 
Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Riverhead Books, 2007. 
 
 


“The proper path of Dominican male-itude”: Gendered Violence, Accountability, and Male Perspective in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The stories compiled here are the fruits of many deep discussions, late nights, and countless cups of coffee. The themes come from what I have dreamt of, fretted over, and/or hope will never come true. They took up so much room in my head that I had to spill them into paper. Tread lightly in the dreamscape

Etienne, Chanèl P

Heritage Dreams, Southern Nightmares

This thesis manuscript submission presents many details on the conceptualization and realization of my thesis short, Happy. I will discuss the preproduction, production and post-production parts of the filmmaking process. I will also analyze the feedback received from small university screenings as well as discuss my experience as an MFA student in the university’s film program

Prefume, Duane

Happy

Seely, Emma

How to Lose the Big Game

Through my art I explore the formation of cultural and personal identity addressing the importance of heritage, ancestors, and religion in Latin-American culture, while I develop my unique deities and spiritual space, creating my own iconography. The pieces are strongly autobiographical, using my family members, and frequently lived experience as a subject. Furthermore, I am drawn to the circle of life and productive failures - beginnings, deaths, and transitions. - My work integrates two-dimensional and three-dimensional mediums, ranging from photography and printmaking to assemblage and textiles, video and digital