Gender in Drown

Gender in Drown

            While reading Drown, it becomes clear through the first introduction of Yunior’s father that women are treated with much less respect in the Dominican culture than in America.  His father, who pushes past his mother and “held up his hand when she tried to talk to him and headed right into the shower”, routinely cheats on their mother with some Puerto Rican woman (Diaz 23).  The mistreatment of women, including later examples in the novel of which he describes his father’s stare at the Puerto Rican woman as if “she was the last piece of chicken on earth” (Diaz 36). This mistreatment has an underlying effect on the narrator, Yunior, who differs from his lustful brother and feels a strong sense of compassion and remorse for his naïve mother.

            However, it is not only Yunior’s father who treats women in this manner, it seems to arise from the cultural norms of their society.  For example, Diaz states, “two hours later the women laid out the food and like always nobody but the kids thanked them” (36). Therefore, it becomes clear to the reader that this culture has much different expectations for each respective gender than our current society.  Placing ourselves in this society, it seems strange (or perhaps out of context) for Yunior to hold such compassion for a girl like Aurora, the box-case girl who consistently gets into trouble and hooks up with even Yunior’s best friend.  Though she consistently lets Yunior down and takes his money and belongings, he continues to go back to her even though he explains to the reader that there have been other girls in his life that were far better.

            After reading Drown, this relationship with Aurora stuck out to me since it was odd that Yunior’s treatment of women greatly differed from the other men in the novel.  Perhaps it draws from the remorse that Yunior felt as a child seeing his mother constantly be hurt by his father, whom he loved yet feared, that he feels the need to protect this girl who constantly finds problems.  On the other hand, his compassion for women could arise from the fact that the only positive memories that he shares consistently throughout the beginning of the novel are moments with either his aunts talking with him or passionate moments that he once shared with his mother. Though I am not sure as to what connections this relationship with women has on the novel as a whole, it seemed worth investigation since the narrator’s thoughts and actions differ so greatly from the normal behavior of most other characters in the novel.  All in all, I believe that this depiction of gender and the different perspective that the narrator shares with the reader allows them to understand just one of the various differences that are present in the Dominican culture as compared to the American society that all of these people are trying to achieve in the end.