The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: Book 1, Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Look at the Princess. The narrator returns again, going further back in the family timeline to tell the story of Oscar and Lola’s mother, Hypatia Belicia Cabral. He describes her as a Dominican princess, with a beautiful body, dark skin, and the same desire to be elsewhere that her daughter had. He calls this feeling “that particular Jersey malaise.”

Under the Sea. Hypatia Belicia, called Beli, lives with her aunt La Inca in Baní, one of the poorer neighborhoods of Santo Domingo. The narrator distinguishes the peaceful Baní in the 1950s from the frenzied Baní of today, but explains that the neighborhood was intolerant of black skin in those days. Still, Beli has it relatively easy, as La Inca owns a chain of bakeries and treats Beli with kindness. In contrast to her early childhood with a “monstrous” foster family, the narrator calls Beli’s time with La Inca the “Beautiful Days.” The narrator also alludes to a horrific incident that left a burn scar across Beli’s entire back, but he does not reveal what specifically happened. La Inca tells Beli all about her family’s elite roots, and does not beat her (unlike most Dominican parents, according to the narrator).

Despite how La Inca spoils her, Beli has an unquenchable thirst for change, constantly straining against the bounds of her life. The narrator says that Beli would have felt like that no matter where she grew up, and is extra unlucky to have been born on an unescapable island such as the DR in the 1950s. Beli’s feelings of suffocation match the feelings of her generation, as her peers are the ones who will finally bring revolution to the DR. La Inca wants Beli to have nothing to do with revolution, reminding her that her family tradition is to be a rich doctor.

La Chica de Mi Escuela (The Girl from My School). When Beli is 13, La Inca gets her a scholarship to the best private school on the island, called El Redentor. However, Beli does not fit in there because of her dark skin and her rough upbringing with the foster family. Beli puts up a tough girl attitude to deal with the teasing, overreacting to the smallest insults until no one will so much as speak to her. The narrator compares her experience to the famous Dominican movie “In the Time of the Butterflies,” saying it was nothing like that.

Beli is completely ignored at school, and forced to sit next to Wei, a Chinese girl who speaks no Spanish. The only time Wei speaks to Beli is to tell her that her skin is “black-black”. Her time with the foster family, the “Lost Years,” makes it hard for Beli to focus and her grades suffer. Though La Inca wants Beli to become a doctor, Beli cares more about boys at school than she does about the subjects she is taught. Yet Beli, ever full of upper-class arrogance, pretends to all the children in Baní that her school is a paradise. Beli spins beautiful stories for Dorca, a mistreated servant girl, where Jack Pujols, the most desirable boy in school, is her boyfriend. She makes herself out to be as good as the heroines from all the romance movies she loves.

Beli dreams of the day that Jack Pujols will whisk her off to France, like the romance actress María Montez. The narrator explains that romance movies were common in the Dominican Republic while Beli was growing up, but that she was more “boy-crazy” than any of her friends. La Inca warns her that boys will never solve problems, but Beli remains single-minded. However, no boy in her neighborhood is worthy of her attention, and no boy at her school will pay any attention to her.

Kimota! Despite the difficulties facing Beli’s search for love, she finds her first love.

Número Uno (Number One). Jack Pujols is the son of an elite Dominican family that is in Trujillo’s inner circle. Jack is nearly white skinned, and the narrator explains that he is an entitled brat who will eventually work with Balaguer, Trujillo’s right-hand man and successor. A footnote delves deeper into Balaguer’s character, painting him with the same demonizing brush as Trujillo. As loud-mouthed, cocky, and misguided as Jack Pujols is, he is Beli’s first love and her first heartbreak. She displays her love by constantly running into him in the hallway.

Beli is completely invisible to Jack Pujols until she matures into her adult body, an experience the narrator calls the “Summer of Her Secondary Sex Characteristics.” She blossoms into a “terrible beauty” with a generously curvy figure. At first, Beli is ashamed of all the attention that her curves get. However, once she sees that her figure gives her power over the males who adore her, she starts to embrace these advantages. The proof of this power comes when she convinces her dentist to meet her at a park to cheat on his wife with her. Though Beli doesn’t go through with the tryst, she is giddy at the thought that she can manipulate other people that way. She decides to use these new assets to the fullest.

Hunt the Light Knight. Newly confident from the changes that had taken place that summer, Beli returns to school determined to catch Jack Pujols’ eye, with a frenzy comparable to Ahab’s search for the white whale in Moby Dick. She follows him, and even wears her shirt partially unbuttoned, but nothing works until she runs into him in the hallway again. He finally speaks to her, but gives her nothing else to fuel her romantic passion.

Though Beli mopes over Jack Pujols’ lack of interest, her grades are actually better than ever and English is her best subject. A teacher asks them to write an essay about their predictions for the future, for themselves, Trujillo, and the DR. A classmate, Mauricio Ledesme, disappears because he writes about his hopes that the DR will become a true democracy without dictators, like the USA. He also accuses Trujillo of killing Galíndez, a scholar in the DR who wrote a dissertation exposing the evils of the Trujillo regime. A footnote expands on the torture and execution that Trujillo ordered for Galíndez, as well as many other writers and teachers, suggesting that writers and dictators are natural enemies because they both have the power to sway the thoughts of the population. Beli, for her part, writes only that she wants to be married to a wealthy man and work as a doctor in a hospital named for Trujillo.

That October, Jack Pujols breaks up with his previous girlfriend and stops Beli in the hallway. He calls her beautiful, and just like that they are dating. He drives her around, though he doesn’t have a license. He is allowed to get away with anything because his father is the best friend of Trujillo’s son. A footnote fills in the Trujillo family tree, explaining that Trujillo’s son was just as violent as his father, contributing to genocide and torture until he was killed in a car crash meant to kill someone else.

Amor! (Love!). While Beli later remembers the brief romance between her and Jack through rose colored glasses, it is nothing like what she imagined. Jack is very rough with Beli when he takes her virginity, caring only for his own feelings, but Beli is too in love with him, and the conquest she has made, to mind. When they are caught having sex in a school closet, Jack Pujols renounces her completely. It is too late to save his reputation, as Beli is a “prieta,” a name given to very dark-skinned girls, and the lowest level on the Dominican social ladder. His engagement to a woman of another prominent Dominican family is called off, his father begins to beat him, and he is sent to a military school in Puerto Rico. He and Beli never see each other again.

Beli feels no embarrassment at the discovery, insisting that she and Jack share true love and that Jack had promised to marry her. No one, from her teachers to La Inca, can get Beli to admit she was wrong. La Inca still can’t bring herself to physically punish Beli, but she yells at her and orders her to go back to school. Beli takes an oath that she will never serve anyone’s will but her own, and drops out of school. Rallied by her new decision, Beli goes to town and talks her way into a job as a waitress at a Chinese restaurant, owned by a man named Juan Then. La Inca is horrified, but thinks that Beli will give up on her own soon enough.

Working as a waitress is not glamorous, but 14-year-old Beli takes to it easily. The owners of the Chinese restaurant, Juan and José Then, are distant, but treat Beli with kindness. She learns compassion from gentle Juan and many practical skills from the tougher José. She enjoys her job there, garnering much affection from the male patrons. La Inca comes to the restaurant to try to shame Beli into quitting, but Beli knows this is the right choice for herself and keeps working as hard as ever.

Beli has many admirers at the restaurant, though few act on their affections for fear of José. Though she likes the attention, Beli finds out that she cannot let go of Jack Pujols. Two men in particular, a car dealer and a young revolutionary, fall in love with her, even though she refuses their advances. The car dealer is obsessed with baseball, and Arquimedes, the young student, bends Beli’s ear with talk of how to improve the DR. A footnote explains how dangerous it was to be a student during Trujillo’s regime, with men like Johnny Abbes García sent to murder anyone caught plotting against the dictator. Even though Beli likes the attention and ego boost from two men, she does not let anything physical happen.

In 1959, the Trujillo regime begins to crumble, worrying the Then brothers and Arquimedes that the fallout will be worse than the administration itself. Beli tells them all that their concerns are ridiculous, and the narrator reveals that Arquimedes indeed survives all of the disastrous events to come. That February, one of the waitresses has to leave to care for her mother and the new waitress Constantina takes an immediate liking to Beli. Constantina lives a wild life on the island, partying in the many clubs of Santo Domingo all night before she comes in to work. She convinces Beli to move on from pining for Jack Pujols and tells her to come out to a club with her, a choice that the narrator calls “the Decision that Changed Everything.” This club will lead to all the events of Beli’s life, and cause her to move to America.

El Hollywood. Beli feels out of place at the club, as it is her first time, but she soon loses herself in dancing. All night, a powerful man watches her from the corner, and the narrator tells us that this man will steal Beli’s heart and send her to America. Their first meeting is an explosive fight, because Beli screams at the man not to touch her or call her “morena” (dark). She leaves the club in a huff, but thinks about this man, who’s known as The Gangster, all the next week. She ignores La Inca’s anger that she even went to a club, and talks about nothing but the Gangster to the car dealer, Arquimedes, Constantina, and anyone who will listen. Finally, Constantina agrees to take Beli back to El Hollywood. Beli dances with the Gangster and tells him her full name, but he renames her “Beautiful.”

The Gangster We’ve All Been Waiting For. It’s unclear how much Beli knew of the Gangster’s work, but the narrator tells us that he was one of Trujillo’s best spies and hit men. Born into poverty, he soon proved his usefulness to the government and rose to become a major in a branch of the Secret Police. He is skilled at all the true gangster trades, but he gets into a mess in Cuba and has to abandon the country on a midnight plane. Still smarting from this slip-up, he looks to Beli to ease his wounded pride. The Gangster is a harsh and violent man in his work, but he treats Beli like a princess. Though he is not the ideal hero she had imagined, his finesse and culture convince her that she can love him. As she unravels the layers of this man, and find tenderness in his heart due to his past as an orphan and his discomfort with his crimes, she realizes she truly does love him.

Once Beli has decided to love the Gangster, she loves as hard as her son (Oscar) will decades later. The Gangster reciprocates and promises her a future far more beautiful than he can deliver. His adoration supports Beli, and she begins to love her own skin, and even the huge scar on her back, as much as he does. She boasts to the rest of Baní that he will take her to a beautiful house in Miami, not knowing that he is currently out of Trujillo’s favor due to the mistake in Cuba. Beli focuses all her energy on the Gangster, ignoring everyone’s poor opinions of him, and she is soon fired from the restaurant. She ignores every warning about Trujillo’s fragile position and revels in being in love.

Reality continues despite Beli’s romantic fantasy, and soon the Gangster is disappearing suddenly on business, returning late and in a foul mood. Beli hates how these weeks-long absences give the neighborhood more ammunition against the Gangster, and she comes on even stronger when the Gangster is home to take her out. During one of these absences, Beli goes to see her old boyfriends and break it off with them for good. The car dealer reacts poorly, and Beli knocks him out with a whiskey bottle in self-defense. The Secret Police stop her, but let her go due to her connection with the Gangster. Arquimedes handles the news much more calmly, simply hiding in a closet while Beli speaks.

A month before everything falls apart, Beli and the Gangster have one last vacation in Samaná. In a footnote, the narrator reveals that the vacation was not necessarily in Samaná, but that it fit the story best to say so. Beli and the Gangster exist in an idyllic paradise for one week, sharing all the things that Dominicans like to do on vacation. Beli tells the Gangster that she wants to be free, the way that he has shown her is possible. The fantasy is broken when a messenger on a motorcycle comes to tell the Gangster he is needed at the palacio. The Gangster leaves, abandoning Beli to find her own way home. She eventually catches a ride in an old Chevy, and thinks she sees a man with no face in front of one of the shacks they pass. She gets back to La Inca’s house and realizes she is pregnant.

Revelation. La Inca is horrified at Beli’s pregnancy, but Beli is ecstatic, thinking that a baby will ensure the wedding and future she wants. She tells Dorca, who tells the whole neighborhood. The next time the Gangster is in town, Beli dresses herself up to tell him the news.

Upon Further Reflection. Looking back, Beli knows that the Gangster told her not to have the baby. At the time, though, she only heard the happiness that she wanted to hear.

Name Game. That night, in a love motel, Beli and the Gangster argue about the baby’s name. Beli wants to name him Abelard for her father, but the Gangster wants to name him Manuel for his father. Beli is hurt when the Gangster evades any more questions about his family.

Truth and Consequences 1. Beli’s pregnancy and the impending fall of the Trujillo regime coincide to destroy the Gangster’s world. He reveals to Beli that not only is he married, he is actually married to Trujillo’s sister.

Truth and Consequences 2. Trujillo’s sister, known as La Fea (the Ugly Woman) was embroiled in as many dubious pursuits as the Gangster, and met him while she was running a brothel. She cheats in all of her businesses and is generally unpleasant to everyone but her son. She is not pleased to hear that her husband has had an affair with a negra prieta (black, low-class girl).

In the Shadow of the Jacaranda. At the order of la Fea, the Gangster’s wife, two thugs grab Beli as she is walking in the park one day. La Fea appears out of the shadows to threaten Beli if she decides to keep the baby. Beli, terrified out of her mind, thinks that the thug holding her is a man with no face. It is clear that the Gangster’s wife means to execute Beli. Luckily, Beli sees José Then walking through the park and whispers to him to save her. He and all her co-workers get Beli away from the thugs and she goes home. The narrator tells us that, years later, Beli will tell her daughter that her Chinese boss “saved her life.”

Hesitation. After getting home, Beli waits to see the Gangster one last time instead of leaving Santo Domingo for good. That night, a neighbor tells Beli that her boyfriend is waiting outside the house. She rushes out to the car, only to find the thugs from the park. They cuff her and throw her in the car.

La Inca, the Divine. When La Inca hears that Beli has been taken, she knows that the “Doom of the Cabrals” has found Beli at last. Remembering the proud lineage of the Cabrals, La Inca begins to fervently pray for Beli’s survival. She is joined by the other neighborhood women, despite the contempt they previously had for Beli. The spirit fills the room and overwhelms many of the women; only three women are able to keep up the prayer all night. Just as La Inca’s body is about to collapse, she feels Beli’s spirit.

Choices and Consequences. The thugs drive Beli into one of the cane fields that used to be plentiful in the DR. As they beat her in the car, Beli remains defiant and confident that she will survive. The men take her out to a cane field and beat her within an inch of her life, leaving her with a huge list of injuries and an experience at “the end of language” that she will never speak of. Beli tries to keep up hope that the Gangster will save her, that La Inca will save her, that someone will come, but survives alone through sheer force of will.

The thugs leave Beli for dead, but the narrator says that, in the strangest part of his tale, a Mongoose appears to save the young girl. The Mongoose tells her that she has miscarried, but that she will live on to have a son and a daughter. Beli crawls out of the cane field and miraculously is picked up by a passing truck. The band members in the truck debate whether it is safe to be seen helping Beli. The lead singer, with the golden eyes of the Mongoose, says that they will save her. A footnote explains the important place that the Mongoose has in tales from Africa and the Caribbean.

Fukú vs. Zafa. Many in the neighborhood say the beating was proof of the fukú on Beli’s family, while other say her survival, and La Inca’s connections in the medical community, are proof that the family is blessed. La Inca, for her part, credits Beli’s recovery to zafa. Beli is not sure what it all meant.

Back Among the Living. Beli is unconscious for five days, and the doctors remain unoptimistic that she will recover, but she pulls through. Once she is awake, Beli rails against the death of her child and the new circumstances of her life. As Beli recovers, the news spreads that Trujillo has been assassinated. A footnote gives the full story, or what is known of it, describing how Trujillo and his driver were shot on the highway by US-backed assassins.

La Inca in Decline. La Inca’s own health begins to decline somewhat after all the energy she spent nursing Beli back to life. The DR is reeling from the upheaval of Trujillo’s death, a situation that the narrator compares to the defeat of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. La Inca knows that Beli is still in danger, but doesn’t know what to do. She prays again, until she hears her dead husband say that Beli will only be safe from the coming political turmoil if she goes to live in New York. La Inca hates the idea of Beli in a cold, foreign city like New York, and, like Abelard before her, cannot bring herself to send her child away. When the thugs come back, though, La Inca knows it is time to get Beli out. Beli, now recovered enough to limp on her own, hates what is left to her in Santo Domingo. The narrator warns Beli that New York will be harder than she expects, but when La Inca tells Beli she must go to “Nueva York,” Beli laughs.

The Last Days of the Republic. In her final months of recuperation, Beli does little besides long for the Gangster and succumb to the “Darkness” as she prepares to leave Santo Domingo. She has nightmares of the thugs and leaves all travel planning to La Inca while she floats through her days. She manages to see the Gangster one last time, but all passion is gone from their relationship. He tries to joke that they will have more children, but Beli knows it is over between them. Though still lovesick for the Gangster, Beli swears she will start fresh in America. She is only sixteen when she gets on the plane, but she is already bitterly disappointed with life. The narrator describes the harsh life awaiting Beli as a factory worker in New York. He also tells us that the man she meets on the plane will become the father of her children, and her third and final heartbreak. Beli’s story ends with her snapping at this man while admiring the lights of New York city.