“How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl or Halfie” is a short story written by Junot Diaz. This short story is written in second person point of view. A Wikipedia article states Diaz was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and moved to New Jersey when he was six with his family. It also states he graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor of Arts degree and later created Yunior as his narrator for his books (“Junot Diaz” par. 2). Therefore, the narrator is Yunior, a Dominican teenager living in New Jersey. The narrator gave the reader a guidebook to impress girls of different social statuses and ethnicities. This short story presents how a teenage boy fools himself into thinking he knows how to persuade girls when in reality he has self-esteem issues. Initially, Yunior tries to clean up his house to hide his ethnicity. He hints that his family is on welfare when he says, “Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator” (Diaz 119). He later explains that if the girl is from Park or Society Hill to hide the cheese above the oven. If she’s from the Terrace, hide it behind the milk. Then, he hides the embarrassing pictures of himself and his family around the house. He hides the picture with his …show more content…
The short story tells the reader how to “date” based on the girl’s social class or ethnicity. The point of dating is said to be able to get to know the person and care and appreciate them making the story opposite of what the reader is trying to achieve. There’s also irony at the end of the story, “She'll say, I like Spanish guys, and even though you've never been to Spain, say, I like you. You'll sound smooth” (Diaz 121). Yunior is probably the opposite of smooth but yet gives advice on how to make a girl engage in a sexual act. His acts won’t actually work on a girl and he’s trying to deceive the reader and himself to think he knows girls when he’s far from
Our boy Oscar comes off as a very sensitive nerdy guy, and while he wants love and sex, he may not be okay with treating women the way that he was treated growing up. Yunior sees this, but no matter what, he can’t stop treating women that way. Oscar may want to be like Yunior because he gets all the ladies, but Yunior may want to be like Oscar because he has a heart of gold. Those comic books and science fiction novels that Diaz alludes to in nearly every chapter point to a parallel between Oscar and Yunior, and how alike they truly are. The word ‘parigüayo’, or ‘party-watcher’, is a derogatory word meaning “someone who fits the stereotype of a loser, and lacks the game to get a date”.
In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, the reader follows the story of Oscar de Leon as told by his college roommate, Yunior. Although the novel is named after Oscar and depicts his life, the information given tells more about Yunior than Oscar. In many ways, however, Oscar serves as a foil to Yunior, showing the hardships of achieving masculinity in Dominican culture. While, to the public, Yunior is the typical masculine, sexually-driven posterchild of Dominican culture, so much of him is shaped by his relationship with Oscar. In some aspects, Oscar was able to mirror Yunior’s struggles, especially when it came to girls and masculinity, but he is also able to illuminate how hard Yunior struggled to fit in by being more true
The author's attitude towards the boys in this novel is ignorant and emotional. This novel is composed of vignettes that show Esperanza learn about the true power of language and the struggle for self- definition. While befriending Sally, she learns more about boys and matures sexually. During the year, Esperanza develops her first crush and even endures sexual assault. From this, her first impression and ignorance over the topic of boys and having the thought process that girls and boys live in different worlds, awakens Esperanza and teaches her an important lesson and becomes to an eyeopening experience.
In a westernized society children books are often guilty of aggressively reinforcing conventional gender roles by stereotyping the physical and personal characteristics of young girls and boys. This ultimately forces children who don’t comply with these stereotypes to be more vulnerable to bullying and self esteem issues. The book ‘Makeup Mess’ by Robert Munsch details and reinforces the materialistic and conforming stereotypes of femininity and what exactly it means to be a girl in the twenty first century. I personally choose to create a resistive reading of the book in the form of a satirical cultural jam. The book ‘Makeup Mess’ proclaims that in a utopian capitalist society young girls are destined to reform to the ideal of the ‘male gaze’,
In “No Face”, Ysrael narrates the same events instead of Yunior. Although these two short stories do not directly feature Yunior and Rafa’s father, they are as much about Yunior’s growth and development during his father’s absence as they are about Ysrael. In “Situating Latin American Masculinity: Immigration, Empathy and Emasculation in Junot Diaz’s Drown”, John Riofrio emphasizes that “Ysrael sets the stage for the picture of masculinity which will reveal itself throughout all ten of the stories.” At this point in time, Yunior is only a nine year old boy in the Dominican Republic, at a point in life where he is on
The story tells the reader about how two girls, each owns a Barbie doll with their one outfit piece and they made a dress out of worn socks for the dolls. One Sunday, they both went to the flea market on Maxwell Street, where the dolls of the other characters in Barbie were sold with lower price as a big toy warehouse was destroyed by fire. They did not mind to buy the dolls at the flea market even though the dolls were flawed, soaked with water and smelled like ashes. Barbie is widely pictured as a successful girl, who is perfect in every way; with her beautiful face, a slim body, nice house, secured job and a handsome boyfriend which is the fancy of every girl. The story tells the reader of the expectancy for women to have this immaculate figure, ignoring the fact that each person has different body fat percentage and body mass index which may affect their sizes and weights.
To begin, the author uses characterization in her short story in order to show just how difficult it can be to start a meaningful relationship when both partners are still quite unfamiliar with one and other. Firstly, when Robert and Margot were about to engage in coitus, Robert says; “I always wanted to fuck a girl with nice tits”. The fact that the author chooses to use the words “nice tits” shows that the only thing that interests Robert in this relationship would be Margot’s body. It reveals just how meaningless the relationship between these two, which can almost be called strangers, truly was. We could make the statement that for Robert at least, this relationship is solely about pleasure.
Lola takes advantage of her deteriorating mother whose illness represents the declining hold of the norms over Lola. Since her mom “will have trouble lifting her arms over her head for the rest of her life,” Lola is no longer afraid of the “hitting” and grabbing “by the throat” (415,419). As a child of a “Old World Dominican Mother” Lola must be surrounded by traditional values and beliefs that she does not want to claim, so “as soon as she became sick” Lola says, “I saw my chance and I’m not going to pretend or apologize; I saw my chance and I eventually took it” (416). When taking the opportunity to distinguish herself from the typical “Dominican daughter” or ‘Dominican slave,” she takes a cultural norm like long hair and decides to impulsively change it (416). Lola enjoyed the “feeling in [her] blood, the rattle” that she got when she told Karen to “cut my hair” (418).
The preconceived ideas within social classes and races predetermines what people think of others. After reading the story we can draw the conclusion about the dateable young girls and advises the reader to take advantage of the limited knowledge of the girls leading to sexual relations. Although to cover the authors tracks at the end of the publication, Diaz begins to use an educative tone to issue a warning that his advice may not always work and to not follow the rules
In this story, each and every teenage boy, including Yunior, speaks with mainly derogatory terms when they talk to each other without the presence of any women. When one of Yunior’s friends asks Yunior if he’s “still waiting on that bitch,” Yunior says, “ Hell yeah,” (Diaz 144). When these boys speak to each other, they only ever refer to the women in the story as “bitches” and “fuckbuddies,” (146). This essentially reduces the girls to objects, only worth what they can give with their bodies.
“The Challenge” Theme Essay Lying to people can be risky. In the short story, “The Challenge,” by Gary Soto Jose learns just how difficult it can be to lie without getting caught. The main character in this story is Jose. He has a crush on a girl Estella and wants to impress her. Jose decides to lie to her to make himself look cooler.
The first words out of the girl’s mouth are, “‘’What should we drink?’” (p. 323). This sets up the idea that the man holds the power in the relationship. Then, it is revealed that the man speaks Spanish while the girl does not; the girl is reliant on him to translate everything for her. The man goes on to dismiss almost everything that comes out of her mouth that he doesn’t want to talk about.
Although his writing can be engaged to an audience who reads the situation the boy is encountering with his neighbors ,but to analyze themselves instead of another person. Therefore the intended purpose of this writing is to not analyze or criticize how a person live, but to analyze themselves , as they could be living their life differently such as being greedy. ”You should look at yourself. I mean really look at yourself ” .Therefore the author notifies the audience of the situation he was in throughout his life,through the use of emotional appeal using personal experiences in his life and humor
From the reading, I understand that in today’s culture that there are still race relations. Even though both groups of boys came from the same educational background and the same impoverished living conditions. I believe his study and findings are still prevalent in today’s society. In this essay, I will be breaking down the parts and discussing social conditions, poverty, self-esteem and motivation between two “groups’’, the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers.
The topic of self confidence is a subject that is heavily discussed when it comes to girls of all ages. Journalist, Stephanie Hanes, examines the current trend of sexualization amongst young girls. In the article “Little Girls or Little Women: The Disney Princess Effect”, Hanes examines the current trend of sexualization amongst girls. She addresses the issue of desiring to become a women too soon. Hanes develops her article by using the literary techniques of pathos and logos to describe the emotions young girls feel when they see images of women with unattainable features.