Beli's Non Serviam: Joycean Parallels in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Justin M O'Connor College

“And out of this disillusionment and turmoil sprang Beli’s first adult oath, one that would follow her to the states and beyond. I will not serve. Never again would she follow any lead other than her own. Not the rector’s, not the nuns’, not La Inca’s, not her poor dead parents’. Only me, she whispered. Me” (Diaz 103).

Caught halfway into a romantic encounter in a school broom closet, young Hypatía Belícia “Belí” Cabral is expelled. Due to the high standing of her partner, and partly due to her own low social class and ill-regarded skin tone, Belí is given sole blame for the incident, and leaves El Redentor in shame. Heartbroken and unsure of the future, Belí is at a metaphorical crossroads. Will she continue to do the will of her guardian, La Inca, and return to education? Or will she utilize the newfound agency afforded by her emerging womanhood and take control of her own life? In the passage above, the reader will see that she chooses the latter.

Belí makes what the narrator calls an oath, and the technique employed in his narration contributes to this idea. The alliteration of “Not the rector’s, not the nuns’, not La Inca, not her poor dead parents” supports the narrator’s denoting this passage as an oath; as a sacred...