Introduction
In his collection of short stories, Junot Diaz makes use of several literary styles. One of these styles is an allusion. This is an indirect reference to a text, place or person, to mean something that the writer doesn’t want to directly show. This essay is aimed at an understanding of allusion as used by Junot Diaz in his text, Drown. Further, it will seek to show the evidence that Diaz Junot uses allusion in order to enable his readers to understand the characters better and have deeper insights into the reality of the Dominicans.
Main Body
Through various characters, Diaz ingeniously tells of the social environment in which the Dominicans live. Sex representation and the way this writer graphically represents events and issues in his text is basically aimed at aiding the reader to have insights about the characters and a better understanding of the reality on which the author writes. It should be noted that in human beings, sex is viewed as a way that tells the reality of a person. That is, if an individual’s sexual life is known by another person, it is argued that the individual is as good as naked before the eyes of that person. For instance, in the story Alma, the main character (Alma) is represented as a “comic-book-reading alternating”. Besides, this young woman is objectified following the author’s description of her as having “… a Dominican ass that seems to exist in the fourth dimension”. This allusion aids in showing that the Dominican society views a woman as an object whose roles are nothing less than prescriptive. A glimpse at another story, Sandin, shows that adult women have emotional scars. This alludes to the lives of most Dominican mothers in the poor area of New Jersey, who carry the burden of their families with them.
It is worth noting that the violence and similarly violent happenings in most of the stories are historic allusions to the historical violence in the Dominican Republic. For instance, the lives of hardship that many youths undergo in the text are just a real depiction of the struggles and pains of many Hispanic and Dominican youths. This type of allusion is important, especially in fictional writing, since it tells the readers of the social setting of the author.
Drown, a short story from which the title of the text is derived is a sterling piece of art whose mixture of literary styles puts it in a class of its own. The consortium of literary styles helps to unravel the puzzle of identity, and among these well-used styles is an allusion. For instance, the narrator, Yunior, tends to admit the fact that his writing in English is a true depiction of the kind of disguise his life has picked. However, it should be understood that Yunior is symbolic of the author, and therefore, when he is admitting this statement, it is an allusion to the reality that the author isn’t of an English-speaking origin.
Conclusion
Based on the argument above, it has been noted that the award-winning author, Junot Diaz, did not pick on illusion as just another style of writing. Its main purpose in the text is to put a sense of reality and truth in his fictional writings. Therefore, it can be said that he uses allusion to enable his readers to understand the characters better and have deeper insights into the reality of the Dominicans.