DISCUSSION LEADERS: Pat Murphy and Iris Foley

1. DROWN
BY JUNOT DIAZ
Pat Murphy & Iris Foley

2. Junot Diaz
• Born in the Dominican Republic – December 31 1968
• Like many of his characters, had a strained relationship
with his father
• Books include
• Drown
• This is How You Lose Her
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – won a
Pulitzer Prize
• Was awarded a Macarthur Fellowship
• Teaches creative writing at MIT

3. Ysreal
Characters
• Yunior – Diaz has stated he modeled him after himself.
Main character/narrator, 9 years old. Lives in the
Dominican Republic.
• Rafa – Yunior’s older brother, 12 years old, player
constantly going after girls
• Ysreal – A kid living in his uncle’s town who was attacked
and disfigured by a pig when he was a child, wears a
mask to hide his face. Rafa wants to unmask him and see
his face, drags Yunior along to do it.

4. Summary
• Rafa and Yunior are sent to live with their uncle like they
are every summer. Rafa decides that he wants to see
Ysreal unmasked and the brothers go on a trip to find him.
They find him at a farm and talk to him for a while after
walking to a store to get drinks. Rafa smashes his bottle
over Ysreal’s head and takes his mask off to show his
face.
• Throughout the story there are flashbacks to other times
when Yunior saw Ysreal, both times kids chased him and
once Yunior hit him with a rock.

5. Discussion
• Do you think that with his past of having a mostly fatherless
childhood, was Diaz using this story and characters to show
the importance of a father figure? Also based off what we
learned in class and personal experiences, how important do
you think a father figure is?
• As touched on in Victor Vargas, if the father is absent do older
brothers take over the role of the father? Then who becomes
the father figure for the older brother? Will they just model
themselves after the men around them?
• Rafa was constantly making fun of Yunior and calling him a
“pussy” if he was scared of doing something he knew he
shouldn’t. Do you think Yunior only acted out to impress his
brother and to impress the idea the boys had of their father? (a
provider, a tough guy, living the American dream)
• Why were the brothers so fascinated by Ysrael’s face? Did his
deformed face make him inhuman, unmasculine?

6. Drown
• Characters
• Unnamed protagonist – Narrator of the story
• Mother – narrator’s mom
• Beto – only character named in the story, old friend
of the narrator who he hasn’t talked to in 2 years, since he
went to college after 2 homosexual encounters between
them.

7. Summary
• The narrator’s mother tells him that Beto is home and he
sets out to find him, though unsure of whether or not he
wants to speak to him. As he looks for Beto the narrator
has flashbacks of his relationship with Beto. They used to
be best friends and would go around causing trouble and
stealing together until one day they had a sexual
encounter that freaked the narrator out. He still hasn’t
talked to him since Beto left for school and threw out the
book Beto gave him without reading what he wrote.

8. Discussion
• Why does the narrator avoid Beto? Do you think that he is
ashamed of his sexuality and is trying to hide it? Is it because
of social pressure like in Raising Victor Vargas?
• The narrator seems to take care of his mother financially when
his father is gone. Do you think he feels pressure to be the man
of the house? Is that why he doesn’t want to join the army even
though he knows it’s an escape?
• The narrator is shocked by the sexual encounter with Beto the
first time but allows it the 2nd time. He only shies away when he
fears being caught – similar to his shoplifting habit, which he
only stops doing when he’s caught. Do you think he doesn’t
want to see Beto again when he comes back to town because
he’s scared of another encounter?
• Why did the narrator not want to read what Beto wrote in the
book he gave him? Is he scared of developing feelings for
Beto?