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Study Guide
Bibliography
Course Hero. "Drown Study Guide." Course Hero. 14 June 2019. Web. 10 June 2023. <https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Drown/>.
In text
(Course Hero)
Bibliography
Course Hero. (2019, June 14). Drown Study Guide. In Course Hero. Retrieved June 10, 2023, from https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Drown/
In text
(Course Hero, 2019)
Bibliography
Course Hero. "Drown Study Guide." June 14, 2019. Accessed June 10, 2023. https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Drown/.
Footnote
Course Hero, "Drown Study Guide," June 14, 2019, accessed June 10, 2023, https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Drown/.
Junot Díaz
1996
Short Stories
Fiction
Drown was Junot Díaz's first published collection. It received generally good reviews on its release and was strongly and positively reappraised after the success of his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007).
Most of the stories in Drown are narrated in the first person. Exceptions are "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie," which is written in the second person, and "No Face," which is written in the third person.
Most of the stories in Drown are written in the past tense. The stories "Aurora," "Drown," and "Edison, New Jersey" are written mostly in present tense, with past tense used for flashbacks. "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie" is written in present tense, with occasional future tense sentences used for prediction.
Drown is the title of one of the short stories as well as the entire collection. The story "Drown" uses a community swimming pool as a metaphor for the main character's submersion in a friendship that causes confusion about his own identity. Drown as a title for the entire collection implies that the people surrounding the main character throughout his life drag him down, keeping him from realizing his potential as a human being.
This study guide for Junot Díaz's Drown offers summary and analysis on themes, symbols, and other literary devices found in the text. Explore Course Hero's library of literature materials, including documents and Q&A pairs.
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