Junot Diaz lives a life of strange contradictions. He is, by all measures, a massive success. He is a famous author who has written several successful novels, he has won a Pulitzer prize for his work and is a professor at the very prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He came to the United States with almost nothing, he worked his way through college, and worked tirelessly to be the author that he us today. Diaz admits in an interview with Hao Ying of the Global Times that he has "seen the US from the bottom up" however later he goes on to say "I may be a success story as an individual ... my family tells a very tells a much more complicated story. It tells the story of two kids in prison. It tells the story of enormous poverty, of tremendous difficulty." Diaz's struggles with the nature of his success is the root of the character of Papi.

Through his own fault he has been left behind by the American Dream. Papi is the complete antithesis of everything that Diaz has become. Where Diaz has become rich and successful, Papi will constantly be trapped in the filth of the bottom. Papi's attitudes towards women is indefensible, he sees them only as options for sex and an easy way to obtain citizenship. Despite his faults, Papi is in fact a hard worker and is willing to sacrifice. He saved up all his money when he first came to America he lived in a slum with three other immigrants where he slept on the floor. When he finally had enough money to leave for New York he walked 380 miles from Virginia so he would "...not arrive completely broke" (174). However, no matter how hard Papi works he can never succeed and live the American dream. The American Dream has cast him aside, maybe Papi wouldn't be the abusive father, the misogynist, the monster that he has become. Compare Diaz and Papi, both grew up poor, struggling to survive. But where Diaz overcame his hardships and thrived Papi could not and wilted.