The Narrative Voice Of Drown By Junot Diaz

The narrative voice of Junot Diaz "Drown" depicts on how the protagonist has a collective amount of strained relationships who are physically and mentally drowning him. Having no father, to selling illegal substances in order to help his mother pay the phone and cable bill to address his engagement of homosexual activities with his former best friend Beto. The argument the protagonist illustrates indicates how it's preventing him from achieving success. The antagonist (Beto) distinguished everything he hated about the neighborhood to put everything in perspective for the narrator in which he "needed to learn how to walk the world he told me. There's a lot more out there." (103) The narrator instinctively insights his emotions and thoughts of …show more content…
He is involved in selling illegal explicit, and his best friend will be leaving him behind to achieve a better future in college while he stays in the neighborhood accepting his current situations. Selling drugs is all the narrator knows and makes a fortune on Saturdays doing it. Having his father out of his life he feels the need to support his mother for all she has done for him. “I recognize like half the kids on the bus. On the bus rides to the mall, he was always in fear that his mother will figure out what he has been up to. “I keep my head buried in my cap, praying that nobody tries to score.” (97) Throughout the ride his emotions were everywhere that he hoped that none of his customers would go up to him to buy drugs. Upon arrival to the mall the narrator gives his mother drug money because he can picture the many times of her “picking through sales bins, wrinkling everything” (96) Since he doesn’t like seeing his mother buying from the discounted section of the store he continues to make many rounds of selling drugs. Despite his actions, the narrator is …show more content…
The absence of his father becomes a theme that brings up an emotional toll between the protagonist and his mother. Being that his father was with another woman and not with his mother allowed for him to feel anger towards him simply despising him. As the protagonist enters his apartment building he states "waiting for my heart to slow, for the pain to lose its edge" (101). The amount he has suffered when his father left and the fact that he wants to come back begging for money was something he disapproved of. The phone call symbolizes pain within the mother since she continues to call him in hopes he will return