This Is How You Lose Her And Drown Analysis

Charles Dudley Warner once said, “We are half ruined by conformity, but we should be wholly ruined without it”. In today’s society, many tend to question their role in civilization, and what contribution it radiates throughout the world. Society as a whole has both its positives and negatives, but overall, many recognize that society and its expectations creates many constraints, forcing people to conform to a reality that has thus been created for them. Whether these conformities are considered “in the right” is essentially up to the person themselves, and whether they continue to follow through with these actions that place them under such a notional societal umbrella. Ultimately, people will do what is necessary to feel that they have a

In the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and the two fictional collections of short stories This Is How You Lose Her and Drown, the author Junot Díaz, continually reestablishes the same motifs, that of cultural and societal expectations, that many of his characters struggle with reaching and maintaining throughout their day-to-day lives. With a recurring narrator, Yunior, throughout all three of Díaz’s works, the essence behind each piece rings true to the struggles that many in the real world endeavor through everyday. Throughout Junot Díaz’s work, Díaz justifies the destructive behavior and unhealthy decisions that many characters are led to, due to the fierce restrictions of having to conform to Dominican cultural expectations and normalities. In the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the environment that surrounds the main character Oscar exemplifies the Dominican stereotypes put in place by society and those around him. As Diaz introduces Oscar to the reader for the first time, Yunior reveals background knowledge of Oscar’s personality and traits. Oscar’s evident distinction illuminates his out of place character compared to those of his family and friends. Yunior explains, “Anywhere else his triple-zero batting average with

Throughout the series of short stories, the plot follows the main character and narrator Yunior, and the his experiences with various women. The sexualization associated with Dominican men comes forward as Yunior accounts for a problem he has with a girl complaining, “All of Magda’s friends say I cheated because I was Dominican, that all us Dominican men are dogs and can’t be trusted” (18-19). Díaz turns the viewpoint on Dominican stereotypes, exhibiting the way that it’s human nature for Dominicans to be casanova-like, describing them as “dogs”, therefore they “can’t be trusted”. Furthermore, Díaz also displays how these Dominican stereotypes go both ways. Upon further observation, the women Yunior describes know that Dominican men tend to be untrustworthy, resulting from all the Dominican stereotypes that they’ve grown up with, but regardless, choose to continue to date them. The men, themselves, also hold awareness for these societal beliefs, yet continue to carry on with actions that only work to strengthen the stereotype. Díaz shows how Yunior and his friends have an internal conflict with choosing to stop their destructive behavior, or live within their cultural expectations. Yunior explains this conflict through a relationship his friend