In Junot Diaz’s short story “Drown,” we meet Yunior, a high school drug dealer who lives in poverty with his mother in a Housing Authority Apartment. The title of the story shows how life’s circumstances keep pushing him down. He is involved in illegal activities, the people around him are not a good influence, and his best friend has left him behind for college. Junior doesn’t think he is able to go any further, saying “I had another year to go in high school, no promises elsewhere” (1242). He doesn’t have many ambitions for the future, and accepts his current situation.
He sells drugs to people. The author states that on Saturdays Yunior makes a fortune out of his selling (1244). Here, he refers “selling” as his drugs because at the park that he goes most of the kids buys from him. Yet, his father left and he supports his mom, feeling a sense of owning her for what she has done. She pays rent and basic expenses and he only pays for the phone bill. On his way to the mall, he is worried that his mother will find out about his illegal activities, he says “I recognize like half the kids on the bus. I keep my head buried in my cap, praying that nobody tries to score” (1244). He is feeling afraid of any of his customers will go to him to buy him drugs in front of his mother. Even though he does it in a regular basics, he does not want his mother to know that his son is doing as a job. At the mall, he gives her some of his drug money. He recalls “hating the image of her, picking through sales bins, wrinkling everything” (1244). Although he does not like her mother to buy from the sale section, he continues the routine on going to the same mall every Saturday. However, one morning, a recruiter stopped Yunior to offer him a real career. Yunior denied his offer saying that he “ain’t Army material” (1246). This way of rejecting the offer shows that he does not want to get involved in a job where he has to be under someone else orders. It also demonstrates that he has little ambitious for the future and refer to stay in his current way of living.
His friend, Beto, who went to college, revealed he was a homosexual, by which Junior feels almost betrayed. They have a sexual encounter, but Junior is “terrified I would end up abnormal, a fucking pato…” (1248). Beto really wanted to leave, he hated the neighborhood, he says “…the breaking apart buildings, the little strips of grass, the piles of garbage around the cans, and the dump, especially the dump.” Does Yunior think of himself the same way Beto describes the neighborhood, because he cannot get out?
The conditions Yunior is experiencing demonstrate the level of poverty he is in, and the environment he has grown up make him feel helpless. He does not have many goals for a different life.
Is Yunior stuck in life because of his circumstances or because of the choices he made? We know from the story that he grew up in a bad area and didn’t have a positive influence from his friends. We also saw that his friend who grew up under the same conditions left their neighborhood for bigger and better things. Yunior also lets us know that he is smart and enjoys reading and learning things so that wasn’t something that was holding him back. Even on his current condition Yunior is faced with the option to leave and to grow by joining the army or going back to school both of which he is terribly afraid of.
So what is keeping him in his neighborhood and with his friends? Is it his circumstances or is it his fault?
I agreed with the upon comment about Yunior has his choices to live his life without engaging illegal activities. In addition, he could decide to go back to school like his friend Beto. However, i think there is one possible reason of why Yunior staying in his current situation, which might be his mother. In the story, it says Yunior’s mother is a single mother and his father lives with another woman. It makes Yunior feels that he was owing his mother for supporting the expenses of the family and the things have done for him. Therefore, Yunior decided he will never leave his mother alone like what his father did for his mother.
I think the main character is not necessarily get caught by the poverty of his environment but rather his own personal will to choose this path. As you mention about the scene where the character meet the army recruiter, he refused to do a “real” job. Although he is afraid that he will be found out that he is a drug dealer, it did not stop him from doing so. Even Beto is coming back from the university did not motivate the main character at all, instead, he refuses to face the reality. To me, the main character is simply a coward who is not dare to face the problem but rather prefer to take shortcut to make some money to live the time he could live while free.