Monthly Archives: December 2015

“Twice. That’s it.”

Drown depicts the story of a minority youth hindered by normative ideologies. The story is infused with flashbacks to illustrate a self-discovery milieu. The writing style is vivid and illustrative, while also casual and without pretentious vocabulary and framework.

A story of an angsty youth trying to find an identity; Yunior develops a bitterness toward the world he fills. It is called “Drown”, and though Yunior is literally drowned by Beto, the story is about Yunior drowning himself. Yunior purposefully adheres to the norms of his surroundings, knowing that Beto is different. The second time Beto touches Yunior, Yunior does not object. A sign of being passive toward his heteronormativity. However, with the exception of the flashback riding in the car when Alex yells “Fuck you!” (page1247) and Yunior invalidates Alex’s remark by calling him lazy: Yunior fulfills the normative ideologies imposed by his surroundings.

Beto iterates that one cannot be stuck in the same place forever, but maybe that is a mantra that Beto told himself. Beto’s mentality is that he cannot be stuck there forever. Beto is a non-heterosexual person, and knowing this he likely never felt comfortable in his gay-bashing community, and was fortunate enough to get out. Yunior’s mother encourages Yunior to go back to school, but Yunior declines. Yunior consistently declines any efforts to change from his imposed surroundings. He is drowning between a desire for his true self and the self-loathing mentality forced by his community.

Drown: How Beto Held Him Down (Drown by Junot Diaz)

This isn’t my first time reading Diaz–or even this short story–but this is the first time where I realized what the title of the story was saying. In hindsight, the flashback that held the most insight to the meaning of the story is so painfully obvious, yet I missed it every time I read through “Drown.”

The line: “He was stronger than me and held me down until water flooded my nose and throat,” which describes an interaction between the protagonist and the his best friend, Beto, provides the foundation for the idea that Beto drowned Yunior (both literally and figuratively). Throughout the story we are given scenes that depict the narrator’s reluctance to see Beto during one of Beto’s breaks from college. This comes across as odd seeing as they were best friends. We wonder why? The first question is–why does he not want to see his best friend? The idea that Beto is the person who drowned the narrator is a logical answer to the question, but then the question becomes: How and why?

The line that I referenced earlier provides ample evidence: “He was stronger than me and held me down until water flooded my nose and throat,” is strong imagery of Beto overpowering the narrator. In fact the narrator said himself that “[Beto] hated when [the narrator] knew something he didn’t.” The motivation for Beto’s actions is clear: he enjoyed being superior to Yunior and having that power over someone. Throughout the story, Beto is seen influencing the narrator in shoplifting and defamation of property. While earlier on, the narrator is established as a person with good character (seen in his accompanying his mom to the mall, giving her money, and following her wishes however ridiculous he finds it), the actions he displays when with Beto completely contradicts that. Beto is placed once again as the superior friend. Even in scenes where Beto wasn’t present, the idea of him caused the narrator to act aggressively. While, as aforementioned, the narrator usually acts favorably towards his mother, the thought of Beto caused him to treat her rudely: “[m]y mother sensed that something was wrong and pestered me about it, but I told her to leave me the fuck alone.”

While there are countless other reasons that point to Beto drowning the narrator and how consequently, the narrator was changed after that one summer with Beto–there isn’t enough time to explore all those ideas in this blog post. Hopefully this has however, sparked your interest in that analysis and you see the ways in which Beto drowned Junot as you read through the story.

Junot Diaz – Burn Out

“A few of you are going to make it. Those are the orbiters. But the majority of you are just going to burn out. Going nowhere” (1248).

This comparison by one of Yunior’s teachers captures the never-ending repetition of the depressing routine Yunior in willingly drowning in.

We being the short story by diving straight into the reason why Yunior is recalling the said experiences – Beto coming back to the neighborhood. Immediately following the account of his conversation with his mother about Beto’s arrival, Yunior begins his recount of the past with Beto and his descriptions of experiences without Beto.

I differentiate between “recounts” and “descriptions” because “Drown” is a mixture of both. In this story, Diaz breaks the narrative into pieces that, like an undated diary, do not have transitions. However, there is a distinction between the entries that involve Beto and those that don’t.

When Yunior recounts his experiences with Beto, he goes into details about non-repetitive events. For example, when Yunior recounts his homosexual experience with Beto, he starts the entry with “Twice. That’s it” (1247). The details he gives are directly related to those two unique experiences, such as the details of the event and his reactions following the event. Even when Yunior recalls his numerous shoplifting experiences with Beto, he cites specific examples that let readers know are single occurrences: “He even talked to mall security… and me, standing ten feet away, shitting my pants” (1244). Despite Yunior stating that his and Beto’s shoplifting was a common occurrence, he goes into specific details surrounding each event.

In contrast to these recounts including Beto, Yunior describes his experiences without Beto as repetitive ones. We are able to see this difference through the opening sentences of the entries without Beto. For example, when Yunior describes his outings to the mall with his mom, he says, “Saturdays she asks me to take her to the mall” (1244), implying that this is a common occurrence. Further into the entry, when Yunior is locking the windows, he says, “With the air conditioner on we never open windows but I go through the routine anyway” (1244). By using the word “routine” (1244), we see that what Yunior described is a repetitive event that always occurs when he and his mom go to the mall on Saturdays. When Yunior describes his bar experiences, he begins by saying “Nights I drink with Alex and Danny” (1245); when he talks about his morning exercises, he says, “In the mornings I run” (1245); whenever he is out running, he “[keeps] an eye out for the recruiter who prowls around our neighborhood” (1245).

Through his differentiation, we can see that Yunior’s life is not going anywhere. Now that Beto, the source of Yunior’s non-repetitive experiences, has moved away, Yunior is left with repetitive routines that leave him static. Just like the teacher said, Yunior is “going nowhere” (1248). Even Yunior, himself, recognizes this, when he says “I could already see myself losing altitude, fading, the earth spread out beneath me, hard and bright” (1248). However, we do not see any indications of Yunior struggling as he continues to drown and burn out.

Tomorrow night Free Movie, Food & Drinks at 7pm at BPAC

Hello Professor Benjamin and Classmate,

Just a friendly reminder for my film screening at 7pm at BPAC they’re  38 minutes long Dreaming AmericanThe Park and The Waiterthat are all written and directed by Emmy-winner Lee Percy  staring me.  After the screening there will be a  Q&A with lee Percy and a special guest from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Immigration Equality to talk about undocumented students and LGBTQ youth. There will be media covering the event as well.

Thank you for your support.
Praq Rado