Blog Post 3

Drown focuses heavily on bad habits. They are displayed as addictive and nearly impossible to break, and often inherited by family. Two common habits in Drown are the mistreatment of women and abusive or harmful relationships. Throughout the novel, they are seen in almost every character Yunior associates with. Eventually, both habits can be seen in Yunior himself.

In the earlier stories, the mistreatment of women is almost exclusively committed by someone other than Yunior himself. It starts out in “Ysrael,” with Rafa displaying as early as page 4 that women are just a source for sex, not worth caring for. In “Fiesta, 1980,” it is Yunior’s tio encouraging him to behave in the same manner; he picks up on that, referring to Leta’s “serious tetas” (Dias 32). In “Aguantando,” he watches as men treat his own mother like a prize rather than a human being, and this behavior is almost normal now. This attitude continues on into “Drown” and, by the time “Boyfriend” is written, the disrespect of women’s autonomy and personal choices has become a part of Yunior. He imagines and listens to the woman below him having sex, disregarding her privacy (Diaz 113). He knows that it’s wrong; when he asks her out, he even describes it as “mighty manipulative” (Diaz 115). That doesn’t stop him, though, just as knowing that Walter’s wife is “good people” doesn’t make him stand up for her (Diaz 124). To Yunior, it’s the only relationship he’s ever seen. He thinks that it’s what is expected of him. In “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie,” even the name is a dehumanization of women; they are not individuals, but rather a certain stereotype based on skin color.

Similarly, there are frequent references to abusive relationships and how difficult it is to leave them. His father regularly threatened beatings, and even then Yunior admits to wishing that his father would love him (Diaz 27). Yunior is cheered on for perpetuating this violence on Ysrael by other boys (Diaz 15), and he is shunned or bullied when he gets upset (Diaz 14). In this way, he is systematically taught to believe that it is the normal family dynamic; he won’t even complain about it to his tia (Diaz  39). “Aurora” displays this idea better than almost any other story; while both Aurora and the narrator are hurt by the relationship, neither one of them knows how to end it. She continues to cheat and leave him, and he continues to beat her. They both want better, but they don’t know how to get it. Yunior is in the same sort of situation at home, knowing that his mom shouldn’t talk to his dad on the phone after everything he’s done, but incapable of stopping it (Diaz 101). Despite the abuse that she’s gone through, Yunior’s mother still loves his father, continuing to show Yunior that relatonships like that will work out somehow.