Responding to a Question for 3/5

Regarding fuku, or the curse, Lola seems to have a complex set of beliefs: 1) "...if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away.  Not ever.  The only way out is in" (209) and 2) "The curse, some of you will say.  Life, is what I say.  Life" (210).   She does not fear the curse or let it affect her actions or dwell on its effects because if it is a curse, it is out of her hands, and running away or trying to avoid it is an exercise in futility.  Blaming the curse for Max's death will not bring him back to life, nor will it enable her to warn Oscar to change his ways.

Oscar's actions at the end of the book suggest that he accepted the curse and perhaps romanticized its role in his life.  "One day while watching his mother tear sheets off the bed it dawned on him that the family curse he'd heard about his whole life might actually be true" (303).  His tendency to view the world through a sci-fi/fantasy lens supports the idea that in spite of or perhaps because of his atypical hero characteristics--"a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd" (back cover)--he is the protagonist, the hero, in his own story.  He seems to believe in and value romance more than anything else, and his trouble in that arena, i.e. his fear of being the only Dominican to die a virgin, drives him to suicidal thoughts on numerous occasions.  His belief in the curse and literature-inspired ideas about triumphing in spite of overwhelming odds--his curse, his stature, his nerdiness--leads him to believe that his story must end in devotion to the cause of falling in reciprocated love and losing his virginity, even if it makes him the tragic hero.

Because of his desire to be the hero and achieve his single-minded dream, and also because of his lack of interest in life in the face of his failure, Oscar considers the curse without fear.  He seems to know, as Lola knows, that he cannot run from it if it exists, but instead of growing to disbelieve it as Lola seems to do, he grows attached to it--glamorizes its role in his life as the antagonist of his story.