Introduction
Background
Incorporating a vignette of snippets of its main character’s life, “Drown” might seem as lacking in tension and presenting a rather lackluster series of experiences at first glance. This impression, however, could not be any further from the truth. In his book, Junot Diaz tells a semi-autobiographical story, which already makes the novel enticing since it allows exploring the emotional journey of the author.
However, what makes “Drown” particularly challenging is the contrast between the seemingly calm and impassionate environment in which the main character lives and the downpour of struggles, including emotional and cultural ones that Dominican immigrants face in the American setting. By showing the readers the two extremes entirely unasked, Diaz throws his audience out of balance and shocks them into paying attention to the delicate details that make the story even more powerful.
The concerns regarding the process of cultural integration are not new in modern society. Due to the increase in political, economic, and financial challenges that people have to face in the setting of their home countries, immigration has become practically the only salvation for a range of disadvantaged populations in a number of countries, the Dominican Republic being one of them. By portraying the economic issues that the family of the protagonist had to encounter before moving to the U.S, Diaz establishes the background for the book and allows the reader to delve into the narration with a sense of connection to the main character and the troubles that he has faced.
The story of Yunior, a young Latino man, his family, and the struggles that they face in the hostile foreign setting unwraps the tragedy of the situation in front of readers. What seemingly appears to be a set of disconnected narratives turns out to be an emotional journey of a young Dominican man portrayed as a series of the slices of his life.
Significance
The issues that Yunior, the main protagonist of the novel, faces, are numerous and multilateral. The book studies the problems of Dominican people in the US cultural environment thoroughly, which adds significance to the narrative and imbues each of the short novels with a particular meaning. Since there have been no attempts at expanding on the problems of Dominicans acculturating to the American setting and the discomfort that they feel in the process, the book should be recognized for its significance and the impact that it has on the audience.
With its profound commentary on the nature of emotional and social anxiety in its leading character, as well as the premises for elaborating about the challenges faced by Dominican immigrants in the American setting, the collection of short stories under analysis gains particularly vast importance in the modern literature. The book engages with its readers, inviting them to a journey of personal growth and the struggles that the lead character experiences in the process.
As a result, the author creates a compelling character with an original arc by showing the transformation gradually, through a series of events that can hardly be described as monumental in their importance yet still leave a tangible mark on the protagonist.
The issues associated with the emotional anxieties, personal development, maturity from a teenager into a young adult, and gaining a deeper understanding of one’s fears and desires constitute the emotional core of the novel, making the narrative poignant and profound.
However, the author does not avoid discussing the implications of the social issues that the main character faces when acculturating to the setting of the American neighborhood. The discussion is criminal activities and the lighthearted attitude with which the lead character perceives them, viewing them solely as pranks, paints a rather dark portrait of the reality in which Yunior lives. For instance, the perspective from which Yunior describes their past robberies as funny antics is rather unambiguous about his moral qualities.
Purpose
Since the story can be described as quite meandering and convoluted, with the plot being quite obscure, the purpose of the novel might be deemed as exploring the concept of growing up and deconstructing the idea of maturity. Displaying the hardships of life in the Dominical neighborhood of the United States without any attempts at sugarcoating them, Diaz instantly portrays his lead character as admittedly flawed yet ultimately sympathetic.
Therefore, the flaws of the character and especially his internal struggle in an attempt at finding his place in the complex and new environment is what makes the story compelling. With his innocence, confusion, and uncertainty, he represents the Dominican culture, being placed into the heart of the American one and forced to shape under its omnipotent and ubiquitous influence.
Thus, depicting the process of transforming from a naive child into an adult, who is responsible for his actions and decisions, is the point of the novel. Therefore, the purpose of Diaz’s book might be to showcase the conflict between the idealistic ideas of a child and a more mature and cynical view of an adult. Furthermore, Yunior embodies the emotional distress caused by a change that comes from within him, being torn apart by the conflicted feelings about his old friend Beto, as well as the change in their relationships. Unwilling to confront these issues and trying to grasp the nature of his feelings, Yunior is lingering between childhood and adulthood.
By making these conflicts collide in a single storyline, Diaz may also invite his readers to consider the complexities of living as an immigrant and having to face personal, cultural, and economic anxieties. The purpose of the novel is to observe how one changes under the influence of emotionally challenging experiences and embraces the unpleasant truth and unwanted discoveries about one’s identity.
Character
Among the most notable traits of the leading character in “Drown” is that he is barely mentioned up until the titular story, and is rarely referenced. While with the discovery of the main character and the disclosure of his name it becomes evident that most of the stories are viewed from his perspective, the initial lack of clarity concerning his voice and personality blurs the line between Yunior and the reader. Being the protagonist of the novel, Yunior is far from being a model of impeccable behavior, yet he is not portrayed as such, either; instead, he is shown as a flawed human being.
The fact that Yunior is portrayed as an unreliable narrator also adds poignancy to his depiction and creates the sense of naiveté that surrounds him despite his past, in which he is shown to break quite a few rules and regulations. For example, recalling his experience of intimacy with Beto in “Drown,” he does not regard it as a violation of his privacy and continues to view the reason for the rift between him and his friend as Beto being “bepo,” or homosexual. The unreliability of the narrator creates an additional conflict, involving the reader to contemplate the legitimacy of some of the events in Yunior’s life as they are told from the narrator’s perspective.
One might argue that the inability to recognize the intrinsically problematic attitude with which he approaches his past crimes and the lack of any regret or remorse about them does not make Yunior inherently immoral. Instead, it shows his lack of maturity and the fact that he is only entering the stage of transgression from adolescence to adulthood. However, unlike the other experiences that he had with Beto, such as their intimacy, the memory of their illegal behavior does not faze Yunior in the slightest, which signals about his lack of moral compass and the need for redefining his values and purpose.
Setting
Each story features a specific and unique setting, yet the two key locations are Yunior’s home country, the Dominican Republic, and the place where Ramon, his father, moves with the family. One might assume that Diaz would juxtapose the two, thus adding wistfulness and the sense of uncertainty to the novel and contributing to the development of the key theme of maturity. However, instead, Diaz points to the fact that Washington Heights is the miniature Republic of Dominica, with the elements of the Dominical culture ousting the American one.
The sense of insecurity follows Yunior and his family in the new setting. Therefore, the presence of the unceasing and ever-growing threat emphasizes the emotional turmoil of the lead character and the difficulties that he has to overcome in order to adapt to the new setting.
Thus, the author indicates that the sense of insecurity is intrinsic to the character, being a part of his surroundings. Even though the family resides in New Jersey, the gap between the Dominican neighborhood and the rest of the city grows out of proportions as the story continues, making a positive cross-cultural dialogue impossible and, thus distorting Yunior’s perception of his role in the American society. Particularly, the fact that the residents struggle economically and financially shows that the lack of communication between Washington Heights’ residents and the rest of the New Jersey community affects the characters and contributes to the social divide between them and the rest of the society.
Each element of the setting in the novel plays an important role in the narrative. Either serving as an important aspect of a character’s identity, such as the aspects of the Dominican culture in Washington Heights or creating the atmosphere for emotional catharsis, the setting contributes to building the atmosphere in which the characters of “Drown” live and interact.
Plot
Being split into several short stories that are seemingly disconnected from each other from the perspective of the narrative, the plot seems to meander and does not follow the traditional three-act structure. However, scrutinizing the stories closer, one will be able to distinguish a pattern in the novel. With each experience that Yunior gains, he closes a particular chapter of his childhood, thus entering the adult life further with every new resolution that each story offers.
For instance, in “Ysrael,” Yunior and Rafa search for the boy whose face was believed to be so disfigured that he had to wear a mask his entire life. Although the lead characters succeed in their search, the story does not have a resolution, ending with Yunior’s remark about the unlikeliness of the boy ever recovering. Similarly, in the titular story, “Drown,” Yunior does not have any semblance of closure.
Therefore, instead of presenting neatly manicured plots with a distinct three-act structure, Diaz leaves the reader to consider the scenarios that do not involve textbook conflict resolutions and, instead, portray real-life situations in all their harshness, vagueness, and often even pointlessness.
Depicting the life of a teenager as he matures into a young man in a foreign environment, Diaz provides a unique character study of a person that experiences both cultural and emotional growth. While the changes that occur to the lead character are unnoticeable at first glance – in fact, his name is not revealed up until “Drown,” – the audience immediately recognizes the narrator as sympathetic, even though he might not be reliable at times. Therefore, the story of Yunior turns into the story of continuous personal growth and the emotional exhaustion that one may experience when facing it. It represents a powerful narrative where the lead character struggles to grasp the meaning of changes in his life and recognizes the need to face its challenges.
Work Cited
Diaz, Junot. Drown. Faber and Faber, 2009.
Quotes:
- “Me and Beto used to steal like mad from these places, two, three hundred dollars of shit in and outing” (Diaz 97).
- “When he awakens he’s screaming and blood braids down his neck; he’s bitten his tongue and it swells and he cannot sleep again until he tells himself to be a man” (Diaz 194).
- “Everything in Washington Heights is Dominican. You can’t go a block without passing a Quisqueya Bakery or a Quisqueya Supermercado or a Hotel Quisqueya” (Diaz 173).
- “Putting my hand on the latch is not enough — she wants to hear it rattle. This place just isn’t safe, she tells me. Lorena got lazy and look what they did to her” (Diaz 124).
- “You’ll wonder how she feels about Dominicans. Don’t ask” (Diaz 183).
- “A muscle fluttered between his jawbone and his ear. Yunior, he said tiredly. They aren’t going to do shit to him” (Diaz 36).
- “We stopped playing only when it started to go wrong for us, when I’d wake up and listen to the traffic outside without waking her, when everything was a fight” (Diaz 166).
- “In three weeks he was leaving. Nobody can touch me, he kept saying. We’d visited the school and I’d seen how beautiful the campus was” (Diaz 138).
- “A couple of times he raps on the windows, tries squinting through the curtains. I take a more philosophical approach; I walk over to the ditch that has been cut next to the road, a drainage pipe half filled with water, and sit down” (Diaz 153).
- “Sometimes the customer has to jet to the store for cat food or a newspaper while we’re in the middle of a job. I’m sure you’ll be all right, they say. They never sound too sure. Of course, I say. Just show us where the silver’s at” (Diaz 154).