Blog Post 4 - Killing Snakes

Throughout The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the golden-eyed Mongoose (capitalization important, as determined by Oscar's rescue on page 301) fights Trujillo, but more importantly, fights the snakes that attack the de Leon family.  Diaz describes them as enemies dictators in one of his footnotes, but for the family, they are more important as the spirit guides leading Beli--and later Oscar--out of their nightmares in the cane fields.  Lola, of course, mentions how La Inca thought of the creatures: "Every snake always thinks it's biting into a rat until the day it bites into a mongoose" (206).  In that way, La Inca and her prayers, powerful Zafa in the eyes of both Yunior and the people in La Inca's life at the time, are the actual representation of the golden Mongoose.  Its presence in dream-states shows how its power is subtle but still present, unlike the faceless men.

In all instances of faceless men in the story, they stand silently and do not act.  Unlike the Mongoose, they do not appear to guide or actually affect anything.  Therefore, the faceless men cannot be the snakes the Mongoose naturally kills, because they are not executors of Fukú, but instead are harbingers.  Their role is more passive and only as signposts rather than creatures with any effect.  In the supernatural tale, they only cause Belí and Oscar to be paralyzed with fear, which only makes the men attack them sooner.  The Mongoose, however, only appears when the damage is already done and the lesson has been learned, displaying its more important role.

That role, it appears, is the offer a choice.  In the case of Oscar, it asks, "What will it be, muchacho?...More or less?" (301).  At the awakening for both Belí and Oscar, they have sustained incredible physical damage, so much so that it could be described as a miracle either of them survived.  The choice they make determines their fate, because they each know the correct answer.  The path of more pain, Oscar realizes, is the path to the greatest happiness.  Whether or not the Mongoose is the totem or the amulet of the de Leon family alone is uncertain, but its presence as Zafa, as the ward against the family Fukú, is undeniable.  With its power, it offers its family a choice of whether or not to continue, because it knows they can.  La Inca, in her prayers, knows their abilities and their fortitude, because she has raised them all from the dust.