DeeJay Santuya Eng 123 05-21-18 Prof Ghori Drown In this collection of short stories Drown by Junot Diaz we see the tales of a young man by the name of Ramon de las Casas and how he grows up. Ramon who also goes by the name of “Yunior” comes from the Dominican Republic, a nation east of Cuba, that suffers from poverty, crime, corruption, and urban decay. The stories in this book detail his life and experiences first living in the Dominican Republic and then having to immigrate to the US. This collection of short stories focus a lot on things like, sexuality, family, the American Dream and belonging woven together by the story of a young immigrant man and his family. The author of this book, Junot Diaz, is an important figure in the writing …show more content…
His father, a poor immigrant man, cheats on his Yunior’s mother and leaves his family so that he can support them with a job in America. Without that guiding male figure in life Yunior has to rely on others to guide him. We see in the first story how Yuniors brother, Rafa, drags him to go see this rumored child who wears a mask to cover up his disfigured face. Rafa is the dominant one in the relationship showing how meek and misguided Yunior is to think that following Rafa on this pointless quest is worth doing. By the time that they find the disfigured boy Rafa smashes the boy’s head with a bottle and take off his mask showing his face. As an accomplice to this task Yunior seems horrified but does nothing to fix this mistake. He follows along with this because he felt like he was roped into it without his consent even though he had a choice in it all along. With no one else in his life to guide him he goes and follows with whoever he feels he has a personal connection …show more content…
His relationship with his mother shows how he is still a child unhealthily attached to his mother, his relationship with his friend Beto outlines his feelings of betrayal and hesitancy when forming relationships with others and his relationship with his brother Rafe shows his inability to follow something he believes is wrong. His bad track record of relationships gives us a deeper look into why he doesn’t seem to be capable of having a healthy relationship himself. Yunior’s views on women show just how he hasn’t developed into a good guy that he views himself as. He gets into a relationship with a junkie girl who he abuses and tries to form a future with despite not being in a stable position in life. He listens in on a couple who live next door to him and he starts to view the girl in that relationship as his perfect girl despite not knowing her very well. He projects his views of a perfect women onto her showing how selfish he can be by placing unrealistic expectations on women and not seeing them as people. He views others with rose colored glasses that prevent him from seeing them the way that they truly are as he has never had the proper guidance to help him see people the way they should be: people who have