Generations: Passing down behaviors

Junot Diaz’s novel Drown depicts the dynamics of the relationship between generations and how behavior translates through generations because children learn from their parents.  Yunior’s father is very aggressive especially when it comes to threatening and punishment.  After Yunior eats before they leave to drive to the Fiesta, his father pulled him to his “Feet by the ear” and starts threatening him “If you throw up”, and before he can finish Yunior starts pleading that he won’t (Diaz 26).  This display of physical and verbal abuse is apparent throughout the novel which demonstrates that this is common behavior for Yunior’s father.  Because this behavior is so common, Rafa has begun to pick up some of his father’s tendencies and aggression.  After Rafa and Yunior craftily leave the bus after being yelled at by the conductor, Yunior begins to cry.  Instead of Rafa comforting Yunior, he says “You are a pussy” demonstrating that Rafa is becoming very aggressive verbally (13).  Although Rafa is at the age where he wants little to do with his family, he is also at the age where he starts becoming a man.  The only man that has been around the most in Rafa’s life has been his father, and because of that Rafa learns how to behave from him.  Another example is the way that Yunior’s father and Rafa objectify women.  Yunior’s father has a mistress who he is not ashamed of having.  He even brings Rafa and Yunior over to her house leaves them in the living room and goes upstairs to have sex.  While Yunior and Rafa are both young, they are mature enough to understand what is happening.  This type of behavior of objectifying women is very apparent in Rafa’s actions and behavior when he talks about getting with girls to Yunior.  During the summer Rafa would “Take the campo girls down to the dams to swim and if he was lucky they let him put it in their mouths or in their asses” (5).  Rafa’s behavior is very sex driven and sees women merely as something that he can use for fun.  Rafa does not talk about treating women right, he only talks about sexual actions that he is planning on performing or has performed with them.  Yunior’s father’s display of physical and verbal abuse and his objectification of women have clearly impacted Rafa in a way that Rafa has already started to take after his father.  This means that behavior transfers from generation to generation and that when Rafa grows older, he will most likely leave the same impact on his children.