Women as Seen Through the Eyes of Men

The women in Drown are all represented through the eyes of a male.  Aurora is described through the eyes of her lover; Yunior and Rafa’s mother is described through the words of Yunior.  Ultimately, the women are all represented through the words of another male, Diaz.  Any glimpses into the feelings or thoughts of the women are what the male narrator thinks they may be feeling or thinking.  These representations of women give us a fair idea of how women from these backgrounds and time periods were looked at and treated.

Yunior tells about how Mami is too tired to do anything after she returns from work; she didn’t want to cook dinner or hear about Rafa’s and Yunior’s problems (Aguantando, 73).  She is a single mother who works twelve hour shifts in order to support herself and her boys.  She is always working, whether that means at her job at the chocolate factory, or at her job as a mother of two.  She loves her sons, but needs the few moments of relaxation and reprieve in order to recharge and help her continue in what is not an ideal life for any of those in her family.

Aurora is portrayed as an addiction.  The narrator says that if he was smart he would have left her (Aurora,64).  In this story, women are represented as something that you can’t live without, but are a nuisance otherwise.  They’re represented as almost too problematic to keep around, but the physical and emotional benefits make it worthwhile

Yunior and Rafa’s father looks at their mother as an accessory.  She does not hold any power in the family, until she is the only parent in the household, and is scolded by the father when she tries to exercise any power.  When Mami tried to tell Papi that the drives he would take Yunior on weren’t helping his carsickness, he told her to shut up and that she didn’t know anything (Fiesta, 35). 

Women, as seen through the eyes of men in Drown, are an accessory to men and hold no power within the family or in a relationship.