Let me start off by saying I really enjoyed "Drown" and it's definitely one of my favorite books so far. I thought Diaz did a great job of writing individual stories that worked really well as a collection.
I want to talk about the fathers in "Drown." Obviously Ramón is the main one that comes to mind but Ysrael's father is also an interesting albeit underdeveloped character. Despite Ramón being significantly more present in the book, the two fathers share the parallel of leaving their families for New York.
According to Yunior, Ysrael's father was the one to put the mask on Ysrael as he was "very sensitive about anyone taunting his oldest son." Later in "Ysrael," Ysrael mentions his father is in New York and had sent him the kite that he flew in front of Yunior and Rafa.
Although in "Ysrael" Ysrael's father seems to care deeply about his son, "No Face" reveals a different reality. It's clear that something has happened to explain why Ysrael sleeps in the smokehouse instead of his room and leaves early in the morning every day. "Go...Before your father comes out," Ysrael's mother says and Ysrael rushes to leave knowing "what happens when his father comes out." My guess would have to be Ysrael's father has disowned/banished Ysrael from the family. Maybe he grew to see Ysrael as so many others do: a sideshow freak. I wish Diaz had expanded on Ysrael's relationship with his father in "No Face" or at the very least given us more information to draw conclusions from.
Ramón is first mentioned in "Ysrael" as the father of Yunior and Rafa who sends "letters and an occasional shirt or pair of jeans at Christmas" from New York. Right away we can tell he has a distant relationship with his family but we don't know why or how it came to be that way.
In "Fiesta, 1980," we're jumped to when the family is together in America. All speculation of what type of person Ramón is gone here as we see that he's almost just as terrible a husband as he is a father. Yunior frequently alludes to Ramón's physical abuse and we really get a sense of the fear he evokes in Rafa and Madai (the sister) as well. The bulk of his wrath is unquestionably directed at Yunior, who feels so terrorized that he writes a story called "'My Father the Torturer'" for a school assignment. As a husband, Ramón isn't much better. Though there are no clear signs of domestic violence, his interactions with Mami consist of either telling her to shut up or ignoring her. To add insult to injury, he maintains an affair with a Puerto Rican woman and even has the gall to bring Yunior and Rafa along on a couple of the visits.
In "Aguantando," we're jumped back to when Ramón is still in New York. Though he's not physically present in the story, he's very much the driving force of the plot. He toys with the hearts of his wife and kids, failing to return home as promised in two of his letters. Because of his neglect, Mami is driven into a depression and Yunior pitifully fantasizes about the perfect father, an expectation that proves to be preposterous in "Fiesta, 1980."
Finally, we have "Negocios." This is by far the most in-depth look of Ramón we get and yet it still comes from the perspective of Yunior. Like others in class, I was shocked at how understanding he seems to be of his father. Despite starting a new family and all but forgetting about his old one, Yunior seems bent on portraying Ramón in a sympathetic light. What baffles me more is how he directs his anger at Nilda instead. If anything, Yunior should relate with her. After all, Ramón strung her along just as he did Yunior and his family.
What are your opinions of Ramón and Ysrael's father?
What are your opinions of Ramón and Ysrael's father?
I never really thought too much about the role of Ysrael's father, but now that you mention it, it's really interesting. It's kind of odd that the father would have him wear a mask because he doesn't want his son to be made fun of, and yet he doesn't seem to realize all the taunting that Ysrael puts up with anyway. Also, the chronology of this seems a bit weird: I always thought that the story "Ysrael" came before "No Face," but it's odd that the father would be in New York, then be back later, when "No Face" takes place, suddenly having disowned (?) his son.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the portrayal of Ramon in "Negocios", I think the fact that Yunior doesn't know much about his father shapes the narrative. Yunior portrays the narrative fairly factually, albeit slightly aligned with the father's emotional state, but I think we take it to be sympathetic because we expect him to be angry with some of his father's more "rash" decisions. Yunior is very in tune with his mother's suffering and emotion, which would make anger expected, but it isn't present in the story making us view the point of view as sympathetic.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Yuniors narration of "Negocios" is rather strange, since during "Fiesta, 1980" Yunior hated the fact that his father was cheating because it hurt his mother. Therefore I would expect him to be a little less accepting of the fact that his father married another woman and raised a family in America.
DeleteI also found this rather surprising. It seems like someone who was so aware of his mother's suffering and hated the cause of it would hold a grudge against their father. I would think that abandoning the family to raise another family would make Yunior think even worse of him. I personally don't know why Yunior seems sympathetic. Is there something we don't know or that he did not explicitly mention?
DeleteI agree that it would definitely have been interesting for Ysrael's father to have been developed futher. I would really like to know what exactly caused his shift in attitude, from caring for his son (places the mask on him to keep him from being made fun of, sends him gifts from America) to the state if "disownment" in "No Face." As for Ramón, he is presented throughout "Drown" in a very poor light, with the notable exception of "Negocios." I too was surprised that Yunior was so sympathetic, but at the same time I feel that Ramón's despicable traits have been overplayed a bit throughout the book. Although he is described as hitting his children on occassion, I didn't see him as a habitual abuser like the narrator in "Aurora."
ReplyDeleteI don't see Yunior's hostility to Nilda in "Negocios." If anything, I'm surprised at how accommodating he is when he mentions *his own* familia as the "other familia," himself as the "second Ramon," etc. It would be easy to imagine the Yunior of "Fiesta" referring to all this stuff in a much more bitter, emotionally charged way. But he seems to get that Nilda doesn't intentionally harm his family, and if anything, she and his mother are both played in remarkably similar ways by Ramon (whom he's also pretty gracious to in this story). I think especially of that scene at the end, where adult Yunior visits Nilda and they have a grown-up conversation about the whole situation. This story seems like a deliberate effort to try to understand his father, his mother, and Nilda in a way that isn't shaded by his own emotional stake in the story. Yunior is the most detached, "objective" narrator in this story--and it maybe has something to do with the implication that he's writing this as an adult, thinking of how his father (at 26 when he came to the US) would be his age at the time. He seems to be making an effort to represent, and not to judge.
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