Introduction
Junot Diaz, the author of the much-acclaimed collection of short stories called Drown, published in 1996, was born on the 31st of December 1968 in, Dominican Republic. Besides the short stories, he also wrote a novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao published in 2007, which also received much acclaim from the literary world. With his two brothers and two sisters, he grew up in Santo Domingo with their mother. This paper seeks to make research on this author’s history and social context, to shed light on his writings but will be restricted to his short stories contained in Drown.
Findings
In his younger days, Junot Diaz, as earlier stated, lived in the Santo Domingo town of the Dominican Republic. Since his father was in the United States, working, Diaz and his family traveled to the poor region of New Jersey, an area that was dominant with the poor Dominicans. This is evidence that his family was poor, and therefore suffering was part of their lives. This is a major element that keeps appearing in his stories, like the short story, Drown. (Diaz, 7).
The ten short stories contained in Drown tell, so passionately, the lives of struggle and inward anguish that the people of the Dominican Republic call theirs. These tales carry the undercurrents of life struggling to discover itself, but which is painfully being dragged down by the hostile environment of abject poverty, pain, and fighting. The youths in the stories, like those in the title story, Negocios, Aguantando, and even in Edison, NJ are a true painting of a struggle for identity and want to redefine themselves to identify themselves with their environment.
It should be contextually understood that Yunior, a character in the short story, Yunior, is a representation of the author. This is because the character is presented as a Dominican-cum-American man whose economic status perfectly matches that of the author. The author’s frustrated romances and a flair for the written word are so much evident in both of his works. Besides, looking at Drown, for instance, one realizes the genius in Diaz, because the blow of passion in the story is what characterized his life in the Dominican Republic before the ruptures that frustrated both his passions and dreams (Diaz, 1996; Diaz, 2007). This study of the author’s social environment puts everything in light in all his works. At least, someone can now understand why most of the male characters in his works, for instance, should have so hot a passion that is only thwarted by fate.
Conclusion
It was realized that the ingenious with which Diaz Junot presents his writings contained in Drown is both admirable and startling. In his ten tales, he incorporates his experiences as a child and as a young man and skillfully tells of his frustrations through most of the characters. The appalling similarity between the author and these characters can only be known to that person who has taken the time to understand the history of Junot.
Besides, the ten stories carry with them the social environment of the author, which was manifested by the ruptures of violence in some of the writings, like the title story. This violence was what made the lives of many Dominicans. It should be noted that this violence, at some point in his life, drove him out of his country and into the D.R.C. Thus, Diaz’s works are deeply anchored in his past and carry with them his former and present social environments.
References
Diaz, J. (1996). Drown. New York: Riverhead Books.
Diaz, J. (2007). The Brief Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead Books.