Literary Analysis Essay
As an Asian, I’ve learned many sad stories about father-dominated families. After reading Junot Diaz’s short story “Drown”, I got to know that in some Hispanic families, father also dominate the entire family. The author shows us that this kind of family cause many problems: Father can abuse the wife and children as he wish. Wife and children have to follow father’s personal order. Even wife or children are trying to change their situation, they aren’t dare to do so.
In “Drown”, we can see that Papi was like a God of the family. He could treat his wife and children anyway he wanted. Papi treated Mami very rudely. In the beginning of the short story, when Papi came home, he pushed past Mami; held up his hand when Mami tried to talk to him. He was always yelling and shouting at Mami. Furthermore, Papi betrayed Mami by having an affaire with a Puerto Rican woman. Mami did so much for the family. She was always busy in doing the housework and taking care her children. However, she was treated badly and betrayed by Papi. Mami loved her children. There were many times in the short story that Mami tried to protect Yunior, but she really couldn’t do anything.
Papi also treated his child Yunior badly. Besides yelling and shouting, he also smacked Yunior. One time after Yunior threw up in Papi’s car, Papi punished him by jammed his finger into Yunior’s cheek. In Tio’s party, when everyone was having dinner, Papi took the paper plate out of Yunior’s hand and shouted “If you eat anything, I’m going to beat you”. He also announced that he would beat Rafa if Rafa gave food to Yunior. Papi didn’t really care about how much his children got hurt. He cared more about his car! Compare to his mom, Yunoir was more eagering to challenge Papi. Yunior hated Papi very much. He written an essay called “My Father the Torturer”. He also called dad is a “dick”. In the party, he was “waiting for a blowup”. He wanted Papi to be exposed for his cheating....