Don't forget the Fuku - Katharine Schlegel

            The reader witnesses Beli’s multiple dilutions where she imagines herself as the perfect trophy wife to the Gangster. As with every gold digger’s dream, she believes she has the key to her dream life, a pregnancy. Right after Beli informs the Gangster she is pregnant the narrator breaks from the Beli’s chronological life to give a glimmer into young Beli’s future, “In her memory he never told her to get rid of it. But later, when she was freezing in basement apartments in the Bronx and working her fingers to the bone, she reflected that he had told her exactly that. But like lovergirls everywhere, she had heard only what she wanted to hear” (137). The Beli described here clashes with the reader’s previous image of this woman. The young resourceful adult is soon to be alone in a cold basement in the ghetto of New York. Moreover, The idea of Beli “working her fingers to the bone” is absurd. The Beli we currently know would never work hard. Our Beli waits around for the Gangster to come sweep her away. This passage is immediately followed by a short scene of Beli and the Gangster deciding on a name for their baby, generally a happy and enjoyable experience.

            The placement of this passage is more interesting than the glimpse of future it gives.  The reader is lead to believe Beli found her life, but with a few short lines (quoted) we are reminded of Beli’s future (or current) position in the world. Here, the novel mirrors the character’s lives; something good appears to happen, but we are quickly reminded of the unhappy and unlucky lives in the story. Diaz placed this gloomy passage between two seemingly happy stories to remind the reader of the family’s misfortune and of their fuku.