I have found
that each book that we read this semester had its own unique reason for why it
was enjoyable. One reason why I enjoyed Junot Diaz’s Drown was because of the various perspectives it had on the same
events and circumstances. Although most stories were from Yunior’s viewpoint,
quite a few of them were from the perspective of other characters, which
definitely spiced things up. One story that I particularly enjoyed was “No Face”,
because seeing things from Ysrael’s perspective changed how I viewed the other
stories and characters. I learned how biased I had become simply because I only
saw things through one person’s perspective. But seeing things through Ysrael’s
eyes opened me up to the fact that the same circumstances and events can look
very different depending on the point of view.
“Ysrael” was
written from the perspective of Yunior, and so I had a very limited view of
Ysrael. The only information I had about him was biased information gained from
Yunior’s point of view. After I read this story, I had several impressions of
Ysrael. First, I saw him as a victim, the helpless kid that everyone picked on.
I felt bad for him both because such an unfortunate thing happened to him and
because he seemed to have no friends. To me, Ysrael seemed defenseless and even
innocent. He didn’t seem to be a bad kid, just a sort of outcast. I got the
impression that he was always lonely, with his family members being the only
people he can talk to without being ridiculed. Overall I imagined him as a sad,
lonely kid who really had nothing to do. But my impressions of Ysrael changed
drastically after having read “No Face”.
“No Face”
was written from the perspective of Ysrael himself. This story shows us a
glimpse inside Ysrael’s own world. The ways that he sees things turned out to
be totally different from what I had expected. We learn that Ysrael is actually
an extremely strong young man who is very gifted physically. Instead of being
the sad, lonely boy I imagined him to be, he was actually energetic and exciting.
He was a kind of superhero, and this “me against the world” mentality depicted
in the story wasn’t negative from his point of view. Rather than being a
victim, Ysrael thinks and talks as if his “enemies” are on equal ground with
him. He turns his bad circumstances into a game in order to cope with it. I
found that the way Ysrael saw his situation wasn’t nearly as depressing as the
way that I saw it through Yunior’s eyes.
Both Yunior
and Ysrael’s perspective give us interesting information, but I don’t think
that either point of view is necessarily “right”. I think that by taking
information from both perspectives we can get a better idea on what reality is.
It is not true that Ysrael is just this sad, little victimized boy who doesn’t
do anything except get bullied. However it is also not true that Ysrael is a
mighty superhero who is constantly fighting his enemies valiantly. The truth is
somewhere in the middle, and I think it is up to the reader to decide on what
is really going on. How did others of you see Ysrael? Did you also like that we
got different perspectives on him?
I also got a different perspective. Call me heartless, but I actually felt worse for him in "Ysrael" than in "No Face". It could be because he copes so well with people being mean to him, or it could be that we see that, aside from the bullies, he's just a normal kid. He has an imagination, he likes wrestling and comic books. It almost distracted from the fact that he was such a victim.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned in class today--and this was a thought I had just as we were talking about Yunior as narrator, and not something I noticed when first reading "No Face"--I see Yunior as the writer/narrator of that story, also, although it is focalized through Ysrael's perspective. Diaz doesn't signal this explicitly, as in "Negocios," where it's clear that Yunior is piecing together his father's story based on what he's heard and his own imagination filling in the blanks (narrating dreams, private feelings, intentions, etc.). But in both stories, there's a sense of the older Yunior--a writer now, the one who visits Nilda years later to hear her point of view--rethinking his earlier views of his father and this kid with the disfigured face from his childhood.
ReplyDeleteHe does depict Ysrael in a more detailed, fully developed, three-dimensional way in this story--in the earlier one he's the object of fascination, but the story is more about the brothers tracking him down to remove his mask. In this story, Yunior is not present, but he imaginatively recreates Ysrael's experience, which means thinking hard about what it means to be Ysrael, what daily life is like for him.
But there is a consistency between the first story and this penultimate one: Yunior is far more willing to treat Ysrael as a person in the first story, and he has qualms about his brother smashing the bottle on his head. He's interested in hearing about Northamerica and wrestling, and under other circumstances, we get the sense that Yunior and Ysrael could be friends. We could look at the later story as a writer's effort to extend something like friendship, to represent Ysrael in a sympathetic and distinctive way--to *really* get under the mask, as it were.
Minwoo, I agree with you that different perspectives gives us different information. Through Yunior, we do see Ysrael as a sad, pitiful outcast, but from Ysrael's point of view we see his liveliness, self-given role as a hero. This reminded me of something Mr. Butler told us last year in history class: "my pain is always worse than your pain". This states that when two enemies are fighting each other, they always see themselves as the victims or rightful rulers, always putting themselves in an innocent light; from the opponent's perspective, it is exactly the opposite. I just thought this was interesting and worthy to share.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the shifting of perspectives and narrators in the stories is not only refreshing but also interesting in the way that it connects to earlier stories. The way that Diaz has ordered the stories makes it so that later stories reveal more information that can make you rethink some parts of earlier stories.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the whole novel I kept hoping that we would get to see Ysrael's life from his perspective and it was really nice to get to see it. For me it made me feel bad for him since he clearly was trying so hard to not get bullied. However, it took away the pity I felt for him when I read Ysreal, since he didn't seem like quite the passive freak-show that Yunior had presented him as. I think that was because it was very hard to imagine Ysrael having any sort of "agency" from Yunior's perspective but "No Face" provided that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everybody that one tends to feel a bit less compassion for Ysrael in "No Face" than in "Ysrael" for numerous reasons. I think that Diaz, in presenting the same character from multiple viewpoints, definitely wanted to think about the consistencies, changes or different conclusions we could draw, seeing the two stories together. I also think Diaz wanted us to think about what was "right", be critical, and think hard about the ways Ysrael was portrayed both times.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting how so many of the stories in this book are closely related. Many of the stories center around Yunior and his family, and then, branching off from that, Ysrael and his life. Even though they are separate stories with different perspectives and narrative styles, we can piece together a bigger narrative with all these stories. For example, like you said, we get a much more accurate depiction of Ysrael by reading both "Ysrael" and "No Face," rather than one or the other. Each of those stories by themselves give a somewhat skewed view of Ysrael, but in different ways. Similarly, with the stories about Yunior and his family, we get a much broader view of Yunior's life and what happens to Papi by reading all of the stories, rather than one of them.
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