Genre Blog: Short story

For this post, I will be looking at Drown By Junot Diaz. The theme I will be focusing on is sexuality, more specifically suppressed sexuality. Here are the passage I will be focusing on : “ He puts his head out the window again. Eat me, then! Yeah, Danny mumbles form the back Eat me. Twice. That’s it. The first time was at the end of that summer. We had just come back from the pool and were watching a porn video at his parents’ apartment. His father was a nut for these tapes, ordering them from wholesales in California and Grand Rapids. Beto used to tell me how his pop would watch them in the middle of the day, not caring a lick about his moms, who spent the time in the kitchen, taking hours to cook a pot of rice and gandules. Bato would sit down with his pop and neither of them would say a word, except to laugh when someone caught it in the eye or the face. We were an hour into the new movie, some viana that looked like it had been filmed in the apartment next door, when he reached into my shorts. What the fuck are you doing? I asked, but he didn't stop. His hand was dry. I kept my eyes on the television, too scared to watch. I came right away,smearing the plastic sofa covers. My legs started shaking and suddenly I wanted out. He didn't say anything to me as I left, just sat there watching the screen. The next day he called and when I heard his voice I was cool but I wouldn't go to the mall or anywhere else. My mother sensed that something was wrong and pestered me about it, but I told her to leave me the fuck alone, and my pops, who was home on a visit, stirred himself from the couch to slap me down. Mostly I stayed in the basement, terrified that I would end up abnormal, a fucking pato, but he was my best friend and back then that mattered to me more than anything....Since his parents worked nights we pretty much owned the place until six the next morning. We sat in front of his television, in our towels, his hands bracing against my abdomen and thighs.' I'll stop if you want, he said and I didn't respond. After I was done, he laid his head in my lap.” (Diaz, 103-105) Unfortunately, this is how our society works. Being homosexual has been viewed negatively for the last couple hundred years. There has been a negative stigma around “being gay” for far too long and it has impacted the lives of millions. Due to this stigma, many feel that they must suppress their sexual feelings and view themselves as immoral for even thinking that way. Many youth also struggle to “come to terms” with their sexuality and feel like it isn’t something that they can discuss with anyone, not even their friends and family. So they suppress these feelings to fit into society. That is what I believe that the narrator is struggling with here. I believe that he may be in denial about being gay and in turn is viewing it like it is the worst thing in the world to be “a pota”. Within the first paragraph of the story, we see “He's [Bato] a pato now but two years ago we were friends” (Junto, 91). So right off the bat, we see the narrator’s biggest issue with his former friend is that Bato is gay. I believe this is the reason that the narrator is questioning visiting Bato. I believe that he feels uncomfortable around Bato now because of his own sexual suppression. The narrator does not think of himself as gay because of the negative stigma and if he starts to doubt himself, then he would be in the wrong. With this point of view, the story had a whole new meaning for me. After my first time reading it, I thought the narrator was mad at Bato for leaving the ghetto because he was the only person the narrator had. The narrator explains that he doesn’t have a great relationship with his father (past or present) and he doesn’t speak to his mother about his life or feelings. Bato was the only one he had, even if they didn’t discuss their issues with each other. Although this might be one of the reasons he doesn’t go to see Bato, I fell the narrator's biggest issue is that he is uncomfortable with his own sexuality and blames it on Bato. He believes that is Bato never would have touched him, he would have never had questioned his own sexuality and would have led “a normal life”. If he goes to see Bato, he may question himself past the point that he may not be able to suppress is sexuality and become “abnormal” like Bato. Stories such as these show why it is essential to see homosexuality in a more positive light. This negative stigma is destroying people’s lives and they don’t know how to “fix themselves” when in reality they shouldn’t have to feel like they are in the wrong. Díaz, Junot, and Eduardo Lago. Drown. New York: Riverhead, 1996. Print.