March 16-22

I enjoyed the style and layout of Drown because it kept me on feet when I was reading it also let me juxtapose Yunior’s childhood to how it impacted his adolescence and then his adulthood. I read it as a child who was deeply scarred and the reflections back to his youth and flashbacks. The idea of escaping poverty by moving to the United States was also another interesting issue to explore. The family was plagued with poverty when they left and unfortunately were never able to escape its impact. Even when Yunior has money to give to his money to go to the mall; the money is from drugs and therefore taints the significance of having money in effort to move into a different economic lifestyle. The notion of sleeping with different men is also juxtaposed against stories of Yunior’s dads mistress. As a child, Yunior saw his dad sleeping with different women and giving little respect to women. Yunior tries to be loyal to Aurora and he keeps believing in her even when she is off with some other guy. Yunior. It is like Yunior treats Aurora as in the same manner he looks out for his mom because he is always searching for her and leaving her money or cigarettes. Another way to look at the relationships between Aurora and Yunior, it could be like Yunior fears being abandoned because of what his dad did to his mom so he does not want to lose hold of Aurora, like when he drives by the Juvenile Delinquency Center and honking and waving as they went by because they know where she was. I think the story of “No Face” is a great backlight for the false sense of hope for being able to obtain the American Dream. Israel is constantly promised that his surgery is coming soon, and he constantly hopes and tells people that he is going to have surgery; and he emphasizes that it is in America. There is never an ending to Israel’s story, the reader is left to wonder if he ever receives his surgery or if he never has it. There are so many characters and story lines that can be juxtaposed against each other that I believe Israel’s story must be compared to Yunior’s. Since your Yunior never escaped poverty, so I believe Israel’s story is just another example of broken dreams. The loss of family is also significant; the reader is introduced to the grandfather in the beginning of the novel and then he is unheard of after that. When Yunior is older and giving his mom money the reader still doesn’t hear about his father, he just disappears. Yunior’s brother also drops out of the picture. So not only does the family not achieve the American Dream, but here family is shattered after moving to the United States. Drown is a story of broken dreams and family that presents America as the reason for the family’s breakdown and destruction. Unless the poor deal drugs, it doesn’t have a way out.