In Drown, a collection of short stories, author Junot Diaz presents readers with an impoverished group of characters through harsh, but vivid language. Through the voice of Yunior, the narrator throughout the majority of the stories, Diaz places the blame for Yunior’s negativity and rebellious nature on the disappointment caused by his father and the childhood illusion of America. Diaz, through language and symbolism, forces readers into an emotional bond with Yunior while exposing the illusory nature of the American dream. Although intertwined with each story, “Fiesta, 1980” allows for a more concise discussion of Diaz’s purpose. Diaz’s language, even at first glance, appears very different from conventional authors:Mami’s younger sister- my tia Yrma-finally made it to the United States that year. She and Tio Miguel got themselves an apartment in the Bronx…He didn’t say nothing to nobody.
(Drown, 23)Two aspects, his Spanish interjections into the text and his tendency to disregard English rules of grammar, surface in the opening of “Fiesta, 1980.” Yunior’s narratives contain Spanish words an average of about every other sentence. Diaz uses them to keep readers aware of Yunior’s culture and homeland, attempting to stop the “stifling” effect America often has on immigrants’ cultures. Also, Yunior’s rejection of the norms of English writing, evident in the phrases “got themselves” and ”nothing to nobody” in the above quote, gives his narratives a certain rebellious quality. Not only does he rebel against America’s tendency to smother cultural values but rebelling against American rules in general, even the rules of grammar. Diaz continues his grammatical attack on the United States’ rules with his lack of quotation marks:Papi pulled me to my feet by my ear.If you throw up-I wont I cried, tears in my eyes…Ya, Ramon, ya. It’s not his fault, Mami said.All of the conversations are printed in the manner above, without any quotation marks and sometimes even a new paragraph to indicate another speaker.
Diaz successfully attacks the United States in Yunior’s defense, but through language style rather than blatant statements.Yunior’s narration, besides being a political one, also appears very negative, but also extremely personal. His voice is conversational, which has a powerful effect:…trooped back into the living room with their plates a-heaping and all the adu...
... middle of paper ...
...ing.
Although, in reality, Yunior is able to eat in America, this symbolizes his inability to enjoy any progress his family makes. Papi’s fingers “weren’t gentle”, once again referring to the difficulty Yunior has accepting America’s reality, harsh and invading. Papi’s reply “because I said so” alludes to the lack of answers America offers to Yunior’s questioning of authority and the broken promises.Diaz’s symbolism mainly concerns his ideas about the image of America and the reality immigrants must face after such high hopes. Mami and Papi not only represent different countries, but an internal conflict within Yunior. He wants to believe that their family has finally achieved a level of success, but has become so hardened against hoping that he physically and mentally cannot accept it. Overall, the stories in Drown possess both a sadness and an anger.Yunior’s voice, although often vulgar and negative, draws readers into his life.
As we read, we form a bond with Yunior. In doing so we move to another level, the political one Diaz wants to express. Thus, in “knowing” Yunior, Diaz’s cause also becomes important to readers, exposing the American dream for what it is: an illusion.
The “F Word” is an essay about an Iranian girl’s struggle with finding who she is, in a foreign land known as the U.S. It acknowledges her inner struggle with an outward showing character of herself that she holds, her name. During the essay the reader learns about how the girl fights her inner feeling of wanting to fit in and her deep rooted Iranian culture that she was brought up to support. Firoozeh Dumas, the girl in the book, and also the author of the essay, uses various rhetorical tactics to aid her audience in grasping the fact that being an immigrant in the U.S. can be a difficult life. To demonstrate her true feelings to the audience as an immigrant in the U.S., she uses similes, parallelism, and even her tone of humor.
The poem “Exile” by Julia Alvarez dramatizes the conflicts of a young girl’s family’s escape from an oppressive dictatorship in the Dominican Republic to the freedom of the United States. The setting of this poem starts in the city of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, which was renamed for the brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo; however, it eventually changes to New York when the family succeeds to escape. The speaker is a young girl who is unsophisticated to the world; therefore, she does not know what is happening to her family, even though she surmises that something is wrong. The author uses an extended metaphor throughout the poem to compare “swimming” and escaping the Dominican Republic. Through the line “A hurried bag, allowing one toy a piece,” (13) it feels as if the family were exiled or forced to leave its country. The title of the poem “Exile,” informs the reader that there was no choice for the family but to leave the Dominican Republic, but certain words and phrases reiterate the title. In this poem, the speaker expresser her feeling about fleeing her home and how isolated she feels in the United States.
Diaz uses the characterization of Yunior to show that he may not he's isolated himself from loyalty and having good relationships with people as well. Yunior is a character portrayed as a true dominican male because he is good with women. In chapter 6 on page 269 Yunior got lola
1. How may invisibility or facelessness be a re-occurring theme for the character Ysrael in Drown?
Literature of the Americas has many stories and they all have comparisons, but they also have many differences. “Day of the Butterfly” by Alice Monro and “Crossroads: A Sad Vaudeville” by Carlos Solórzano have characters that share some traits and ways, but like all characters they have things that are different. The old woman from “A Sad Vaudeville” is a dynamic protagonist who finds herself meeting the perfect man for her, but has a dilemma when he is in denial because she is not the ideal girl of his dreams; she’s old. Myra from “Day of the Butterfly” is a static antagonist who does not have the same care free attitude as most of the children her own age. She is rather shy and does not fit in or socialize much with people her own age.
Junot Diaz’s novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is focused on the hyper-masculine culture of the Dominican, and many argue that his portrayal of the slew of women in the novel is misogynistic because they are often silenced by the plot and kept out of the narration (Matsui). However, Diaz crafts strong women, and it is society that views them as objects. The novel recognizes the masculine lens of the culture while still examining the lives of resilient women. In this way, the novel showcases a feminist stance and critiques the misogynist culture it is set in by showcasing the strength and depth of these women that help to shape the narrative while acknowledging that it is the limits society places on them because of their sexuality
of the native tongue is lost , certain holidays may not be celebrated the same , and American born generations feel that they might have lost their identity , making it hard to fit in either cultures . Was is significant about this book is the fact it’s like telling a story to someone about something that happened when they were kid . Anyone can relate because we all have stories from when we were kids . Alvarez presents this method of writing by making it so that it doesn’t feel like it’s a story about Latin Americans , when
Junot Diaz’s “Otravida, Otravez” postulates a perspective of life where one’s present and future always reflects their past in some way. Diaz incorporates symbolic figures to convey how a person’s past can be carried into the future. Diaz’s use of symbolic figures includes the dirty sheets washed by Yasmin, the letters sent by Virta to Ramon, and the young girl who begins working with Yasmin at the hospital. These symbolic figures and situations remind the readers that the past will always play a major role in one’s present. Additionally, Diaz’s word choice, where Spanish words appear in many different parts of the reading, suggests that indirectly, one’s past habits are not easily broken.
Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth chapter, namely the domestic abuse scene, functions as a pivotal point in the Mother Tongue as it helps her to define herself.
“Papi pulled me to my feet by my ear. If you throw up— I won 't, I cried, tears in my eyes, more out of reflex than pain” (307). As this scenario presents violence, it displays innocent Yunior’s response towards his abusive father as he pulls Yunior’s ears. In the short story Fiesta 1980, Junot Diaz depicts the life of young Yunior as he struggles with his Dominican family issues. Yunior was picked on the most in the family, especially from his dad. As Poor Yunior was the victim of his dad’s affair with a Puerto Rican woman, it affected him psychologically. Yunior suffers from the fact his beloved mother is being cheated on; therefore, he vomits as he rides his dad’s van, as his first ride in the van is linked to his first meeting with
She was not a master of style, plot development or characterization, but the intensity of feeling and aspiration are evident in her narratives that overrides her imperfections. Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, written in 1984, and Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, published in 1925, are both aimed at adolescent and adult audiences that deal with deeply disturbing themes about serious social conditions and their effects on children as adults. Both books are told in the first person; both narrators are young girls living in destitute neighborhoods; and both young girls witness the harsh realities of life for those who are poor, abused, and hopeless. Although the narrators face these overwhelming obstacles, they manage to survive their tough environments with their wits and strength remaining intact. Esperanza, a Chicano with three sisters and one brother, has had a dream of having her own things since she was ten years old.
Throughout the story there is evidence that the main character is ashamed of himself and his background. He hides the government cheese, which tells us that he is in a low economic class. He also takes down embarrassing photographs of his family and himself, which is more indication that he isn’t proud of his family, background, or heritage. Yunior also tells us many things to do in order to be like other people, especially white people. He tells us that you need to run your fingers through your hair and to write directions for parents in your absolute best handwriting (Diaz 236). It is also evident that he is ashamed of his background when he states “You’ll wonder how she feels about Dominicans. Don’t ask.”(Diaz 237). Also, when he is telling the girl stories about the neighborhood, he says not to tell her that his mother knew immediately what t...
In This Is How You Lose Her, the narrator/character of Yunior faces various dilemmas and struggles with who he is as a person. It is a story of how a character, Yunior, loses the love of his life through his own infidelity. The book also goes into detail into how men are taught to think that woman are not fully human and the very difficult process to which they learn the truth. In general, Yunior struggles with being a son, a brother, a lover, and many more throughout the novel. We see Yunior grow as a person and blossom into adulthood. While the book gives an overall outlook into his life and of those around him, we can piece together a chronological understanding of his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We can also see an overview of the people around him and in his life experiences and growth. The entire book is a collection of several unconnected stories that told by the same narrator, Yunior. Yunior appears as a reckless Dominican guy who’s unable to love others full heartedly. Throughout the book, Yunior’s stories portray love, betrayal and violence compressed and written in a textured tone while expressing difficult emotions mixed with cultural displacement and rejection from his adopted country.
Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, set in the late 1900’s, tells a story of Oscar Wao, an overweight Dominican “ghetto nerd”, his mother and rebellious sister who live together in Paterson, New Jersey. Throughout the novel, Diaz incorporates many different stories about each character that show acts of resistance. One of the most prominent stories of resistance in the novel is through Oscar’s mom; Beli, who is prompted by great tragedy, known as the Trujillo curse, to love atomically and thus follow a dangerous path. Beli’s family history plays a large role in her choices that eventually compel her into a different life than what her adopted mother, La Inca, had wanted
Julia Alvarez was an example of how a Latina writer identified herself in a new culture outside of her comfort zone. She, as a Dominican Diaspora, had to reinvent herself as she migrated into a new scenario. Her assimilation into the United States culture allowed her to understand and relate to the reader’s needs and points of interests. After all the effort, Alvarez kept in mind that she could not comfort to all the reality that she lived in, so she re-reinvented herself all over again to process her thoughts and beliefs into her life. She put her perspective on her writing so that the new wave of readers, even if they did not understand, could relate in some way and appreciate the differences. The sole purpose of her writings was for everyone to change their perspective from “walk to the other side of the street in order to avoid sharing the same sidewalk” to “I do not know them, but I do not avoid them because I do not know them”. She instilled in her reader’s mind how ordinary events were viewed differently through other cultures’ eyes. Her story Snow was a great example of how she portrayed her technique.