BOYFRIEND by JUNOT DIAZ Reading guide

1. PLOT “BOYFRIEND”
Exposition:
The story is developed in a building, where a man who likes drink and smoke always is hearing his
neighbors in the apartment below. He becomes addicted to listen them.
Crisis:
The man hears that “Boyfriend” and “girlfriend” always are fighting. Also he knows that “Girlfriend ”
is a woman very intelligent and submissive. He ignores her and also he just uses her to his
necessities and to have sex. The man knows that Loretta his ex-girlfriend is different because she
preferred to go away from him searching a better way with a rich hard working guy because with
him she didn’t have opportunities of life.
Resolution:
The man felt so bad for the woman, because she cried every day for her boyfriend and he never
called her and never came back. So finally the man had the courage to invite her for a coffee. Also
he sang a song for Girlfriend.
CHARACTERS
Narrator: He spends his time smoking and looking for a job
Boyfriend: He sees women as sexual objects. He refers to them in a very gross way. His language
is informal.
Girlfriend: She loves his boyfriend, although she knows he is very interested in other women. She
needs totally of her boyfriend, she is a dependent woman.
Loretta: Loretta embodies the selfish woman who seems to know what she wants
IMAGERY/SYMBOLISM
Ass: women’s beauty.
Hair cut: freedom, revelation.
GLOSSARY
Snake: slide
Walrus: a pinniped mammal
Knuckleheads: Refers to a person of questionable intelligence.
Borinquén: nickname for those who are from Puerto Rico

2. THE AUTHOR ON ITS TIME.
JUNOT DIAZ
Junotr Diaz is a writer was born in Republ ica
Dominicana (December 31st, 1968) and he
began to live in United States with his father
when he was 6 years old. Junot always has
been a great reader he went to the library
every time he could. He studied the primary in
Madison Park elementary. After that, he
attended at the Cedar Ridge High School
(1987). Diaz made his majoring in English in
Rutgers University (1992). He did a master of
Fine Arts in Cornell University. Actually, Junot
Diaz is professor at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology of creative wirting and fiction
editor at Boston Review. In 2008 Diaz received
the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The
brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Book review
“Originally published in 1996, Drown by Junot
Díaz is a book composed of ten short stories,
some of them previously published in literary
magazines and other venues. Junot Díaz won
the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and is better
known for his work on the novel The Brief
Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in
the United States, Diaz follows in the footsteps
of other Latin American writers with this
collection of short stories. His voice is strong
and he obviously knows the subject matter.
In Drown, Díaz focuses on the struggl e s,
frustrations, anger and needs faced by poor
immigrant Dominican boys, young men, and
adult males, both in the Dominican Republic
and in New Jersey. And yes it's important to
note that he does focus on the male experience
and point of view. ”
FOR FURTHER READING:
- QU IN TAN A, AL VIN A E ., Home Girls: Chicana Literary Voices. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1 9 9 6 .
- SAL D ÍVAR -H U L L, SON IA. Feminism on the Border: Chicana Gender Politics and Literature. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2 0 0 0 .

3. CONNOTATION
To begin with the
interpretation, we’re going to focus on two
main aspects, we will start with the analysis of
the text by following the semantic or cognitive
level of interpretation. On the other hand we
will drive our interpretation right to the
cultural level to consider some repetitive
aspects.
SEMANTIC LEVEL
Denotation:
The whole story is narrated by means of a
fairly strong language in which the reader can
almost perceive the character really talking to
himself. The narrator recounts a couple´s life
which reminds him of some things he lived with
his ex-girlfriend; he uses metaphors in several
parts of the story to exemplify what he is
feeling portraying an image of how a Latino
from the “barrio” would talk like.
Connotation:
The text gives the reader a view
on two different sides of women. On one hand
we have the character named as “Girlfrie nd”
and on the other hand we have the narrator’ s
ex-girlfriend called “Loretta”. Both women
represent a different perspective, Loretta
embodies the selfish woman who seems to
know what she wants, so that she prefers to
go away with a rich hard working guy and
leave her boyfriend behind. Whereas,
Girlfriend depicts the submissive woman who
is willing to do anything for her boyfriend.
Taking into account the previous context, what
the author wants to do is to tell women to
break their chains, to be self-sufficient, to
keep moving besides their adversities. An
evidence of this, is illustrated when the main
character sings a song for Girlfriend and it
says something like this: “Yo quiero que mi
Borinquén sea libre y soberana”. By the end of
the text, Girlfriend decides to get her hair cut
short to show that she is not going to be the
woman men expect her to be; to cut her hair
means to cut all straighteners in her life, to cut
one of the most important parts for women
getting her away from all preconceived ideas.
CULTURAL LEVEL
To sum up, there is a powerful concept which
embraces the Latino representation in the USA
“El Barrio”. El Barrio is the only one place in
which Latinos feel part of something. El Barrio
is perceived as the clearest example of
ethnocentrism for Latin people; it is a shield
against “foreign” people.

4. WORKSHEET
1. What solutions would you propose to avoid stereotypes which depict Latinos as bad people?
2. Do you think Latino writers have helped promoting a bad Latino image by means of literature?
Why?
3. Why do you think the author shows the typical Latinos’ stereotypes in each character of the
story?

5. Reading guide on Boyfriend Chapter Six from Drown.
By: Daniel Gómez.
Julian González.
Karol Rodriguez.
Anderson Sua.
Claudia Triana.
E- Mail:
Gdaniel77@unisalle.edu.co
Gjulian21@unisalle.edu.co
Drown By Junot Diaz.