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.
While I agree that the narrator is influenced by his environment, I think that Beto does most of the “drowning” in this story. He and the narrator are best friends and Beto is the more dominant of the two since he is both older and stronger. Your thoughts about Beto being uncomfortable in his community and trying to escape are very interesting and changes my whole perspective on all of his actions throughout the story. Although what he did is still wrong, I can somewhat empathize with his feelings and actions as someone who is different than all of his friends. There is no doubt that the narrator is being drowned and influenced by everyone and everything in his life, but I think that Beto had the greatest effect on him and has probably left him scarred for life.