Junot Diaz's Drown Character Analysis

In A Place Where the Sea Remembers, Sandra Benitez invites us into a mesmerizing world filled with love, anger, tragedy and hope. This rich and bewitching story is a bittersweet portrait of the people in Santiago, a Mexican village by the sea. Each character faces a conflict that affects the course of his or her life. The characters in this conflict are Remedios, la curandera of the small town who listens to people’s stories and gives them advice, Marta, a 16 year old teenage girl, who was raped and became pregnant. Chayo is Marta’s big sister and Calendario is Chayo’s husband. Justo Flores, his conflict is person vs. self. One of the most important conflicts in this story is person vs. person, then person vs. supernatural followed by

Junot Diaz was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated with his family to New Jersey, where a collection of his short stories are based from. Out of that collection is a short story “Fiesta, 1980”, which was featured in The Best American Short Stories, 1997. This story is told from the perspective of an adolescent boy, who lives in the Bronx of northern New Jersey with his family. He is having trouble understanding why things are the way they are in his family. Diaz shows Yunior’s character through his cultures, his interaction with his family, and his bitterness toward his father.

It is not just the language of the Dominican culture that we find characters struggling to hold onto in Díaz’s Drown. We also find that the characters walk a fine line of defining themselves as newly Dominican American, and it seems they feel pressured to leave behind their old ways and traditions to join their new society. In the short story “Fiesta, 1980,” we find many examples of the family being torn between their Dominican customs and assimilating to their new American life. This story begins with the explanation of Papi’s most prized possession: a brand-new, lime-green, Volkswagen van. Much to Yunior’s chagrin (due to the fact that he gets sick every time he rides in the vehicle), this van means a lot to Papi, because to him, it represents an American family. According to John Riofrio (2008), “it[the van] is the embracing of the American way which has reenabled Papi’s masculinity,” (p. 33). After arriving at their Tia and Tio’s home for the party, Yunior sneers at his relatives’ apartment stating, “the place had been furnished in Contemporary Dominican Tacky” (p. 32). It seems as though Yunior, after only a short period in America, is already feeling embarrassed by his culture’s traditions. This chapter of the book also discusses the betrayal of Yunior’s father to his family, by having an affair with a Puerto Rican woman, whom

Here we are revealed more about human nature. Just like any society that instills fear into its followers or citizens that is exactly what the father does with his family. The father is the figure of power of this family and instead of leading with love and kindness he demonstrates his power through fear and dominance. We are able to see that the family in itself is a whole and loves each other, yet there is this rift between each family member that is threatening to tear it apart. For example, when Yunior gets in trouble with his father and his brother is around instead of standing with Yunior and speaking up Rafa backs away and avoids any confrontation with their father in order to avoid his wrath. This makes Yunior look down on his brother in a sense that Rafa doesn’t have his back at times when he needs him most, so he truly can’t trust him (Shreve & Nguyen, 2006). This is just the small part of the family for there are even parts of the whole family that act in a similar fashion.

The short story “Nilda”, by Junot Diaz, depicts the ever changing and complicated inner workings of manhood through its two male characters, Yunior and Rafa. The characterization of the two lead to very different outcomes when considering how they both behave initially, and respond to social and emotional stimuli within the story. They both conform to stereotypes within the male gender, and sometimes attempt to escape that confine. Both Rafa and Yunior give the reader a unique insight into what it is like to become a man, and also the way society labels you in ways that may not always apply. The different areas of manhood discussed are both broad in range, yet specific in considering the consequence of each aspect. The range of actions discussed in the story also creates juxtaposition between the two brothers in the story. They are in a similar living and social situation, yet their respective outwardly demeanor and outlook on life is vastly different from one another.

In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the reader gets a sense of what the expectations are of Dominican men and women. Junot Díaz uses Oscar in contrast to the other male characters to present the expectations of the Dominican male. On the other hand, Díaz presents the women in the text, especially Belicia, La Inca, Lola, and Jenni, as strong characters in their own rights, but the male characters, with the exception of Oscar, have a desire to display their masculinity to maintain power over these women. It would be unfair to say that the women bring the abuse unto themselves, but rather it is their culture that makes the abuse acceptable and almost to a certain extent—expected.

As children grow up in a dysfunctional family, they experience trauma and pain from their parent’s actions, words, and attitudes. With this trauma experienced, they grew up changed; different from other children. The parent’s behavior affects them and whether they like it or not, sometimes it can influence them, and they can react against it or can repeat it. In Junot Díaz’s “Fiesta, 1980”, is presented this theme of the dysfunctional family. The author presents a story of an adolescent Latin boy called Junior, who narrates the chronicles of his dysfunctional family, a family of immigrants from the Dominican Republic driving to a party in the Bronx, New York City. “Papi had been with

New York City's fastest growing immigrant group are Dominicans, a Spanish speaking people, flocking from the Dominican Republic to the United States, New York City in specific. In 1980 the Dominican population in NYC was 125,380, in 1990 it was 332,713, and today in 1999 it is an estimated 500,000 people. The only problem with this is through the years of their migration to America, their per capita income has declined precipitously. It seems as though when the Dominican population in America increases, their income as a whole decreases. Nearly half of the Dominicans in NYC live below the poverty level. In 1990 29% of Dominicans where on welfare. Of foreign people immigrating to the U.S., only people from the former Soviet Union had a higher percentage of people living on public assistance. From 1989 to 1996 their per capita income declined 23% to $6,094 a year, in inflation adjusted dollars, while their poverty rate rose from 37% to 46%, that is almost double for the city as a whole. Unemployment also rose from 17.2% in 1990 to 18.8% in 1996 (Lopez, p. 3). The source of these severe economic problems

One thing all human beings, have in common is the struggle for self identity. Children are raised by parents or guardians who have struggled and fought for their own identities. In many cases, parents are still trying to figure it out, while raising their own children. Such is the case with the characters in Junot Diaz’s, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The theme of identity is conveyed through the characters’ Dominican culture, social standing, and in finding love. Oscar, Lola, and Yunior are three central characters in Oscar Wao, who’s Dominican cultural and family expectations were major obstacles as they struggled to establish their identity.

Growing up poor in the Dominican Republic strongly influenced the choices Yunior makes later in his life. In “Aguantando” Yunior recalls about how poverty was a part of his life. Díaz writes, “We were poor. The only way we could have been

It’s easy to assume his life would be significantly better if he had his father in his life while he was growing up, though as we know his father takes the misogyny that Yunior exhibits to a whole new level, involving himself with domestic abuse and a lack of care for his children. For example, “At dinner she’d try her English out on Papi… You don’t have to learn, he said. Besides, the average woman can’t learn English.” This gives the reader some sort of explanation for his actions and ideologies.

The goes as far as blaming his mother, father and at one point even the big city of Santo Domingo. Yunior gets more and more desperate to win his finance back and thinks of canceling his Facebook account would help. He attends salsa classes with her just to be close to her in a romantic setting, which to fails once again. He says “I’m O.K., you tell them, but with each passing week the depression deepens.”

There are many groups of people who live apart from the masses, isolated from the rest of the world and its exclusive things. They may or may not know of anything outside of their region. Much like the people of the small village in, “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” by Gabriel García Marquez. In the story, Esteban, the Drowned Man, symbolizes an overwhelming experience for the villagers. He unintentionally urges the villagers to gather, and brightens up their dull and regular way of living. The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World reflects how an individual can have a huge impact on the lives of other people.

Valentina Gomez, a great girl who has nothing but love to give to her friends and family. Her one vice entails giving too much, similar to the comical situations that many know and love where there is one character that can never save their money due to their generosity. That seemingly legendary character manifests itself in Valentina Gomez, often found helping a fellow human less fortunate than herself. Her Saturday nights spent in soup kitchens, as opposed to her peers wasting their time partying committing possible illegal acts. Valentina’s generosity continues to grow to this day, it often times worries her family and friends. Constantly worried that she will give until she’s broke, her parents have since given her a charity budget. A magnetic

Yunior, the protagonist did not have a normal father/son relationship with his father because of the way he was treated. Papi told Yunior, "I'm going to beat you.¿Entiendes?" If he were to eat knowing that they were going to drive back home. He did not stop there he threatened his older son, Rafa, that " And if your brother give you any food. I'll beat him too."