3rd Draft of Style Essay

***(Insert somewhere) Writing is typically composed of two essential factors or components: style and content. The content is the facts, the material, what actually happened, while the style is the medium, the approach, the technique.

In Junot Diaz’s Drown, he writes ten different short stories whose various themes range from family crisis to betrayed love. Each story appears to have its own plot, its own characters, its own narrator: from “Fiesta, 1980,” which revolves around the tension of family and how enhanced that becomes at family gatherings, to “Aurora,” all about a young man’s yearning for a girl in the midst of drugs and vandalism. Not only do his stories shift in content, but Diaz also uses a multitude writing styles that change from story to story, even page to page: poetic sophistication, intimacy with the reader, the use of objective correlatives, and many more.

Yet, only once we look deeper do we see traces of the same themes pop up in each story. We notice many recurring characters, similar issues, and similar emotions that it seems  Diaz is actually tackling the same themes and issues throughout the whole of his book. But although the content is often the same in all of Diaz’s stories, the styles in which he explores and navigates the content greatly vary, so much so that we almost miss the connection. In addition, his format of short stories would lead us to initially think that each one stands on its own, yet when thoroughly investigated it seems that they’re in fact related. So if Diaz’s styles are so numerous and varied, yet the stories seem to thematically connect, what is the relationship between his style and his content? How do they relate to each other, depend on each other, work together?

One way to consider this is to see that these stories really aren’t isolated from one another, but each one a distinct method or lens that Diaz uses to reflect on and explore the journey of a young boy, Yunior, and his encounters, experiences, challenges, and more over the course of his early life. Furthermore, Diaz’s his wistful form and serious content are so inextricable and intimately intertwined that isn’t possible to disconnect the two, but only to acknowledge and embrace them as one. Evidently, it is not style and content that coexist but rather form and content that fuse together to form a style. Thus, Diaz embodies many styles in his book, because as his form changes from story to story, so does his style. He uses the power of form by using poetry, metaphors, analogies and more to weave together a tale so intricately layered with thoughts and emotions and experiences. So rather than trying to pinpoint or label Diaz’s style, it is more effective to observe and analyze his writing as a whole, and explore how he idiosyncratically integrates his content and his form to reveal and present his stories.

First and foremost, Diaz’s way of introducing details alters our reactions and interpretations of the events within the stories. He has a consistent style of messing with the order of revealing information, both with the order of the stories themselves, and even within the actual stories. In the 2nd chapter “Fiesta, 1980,” he welcomes us into the book by informing us of Yunior’s familial situation in America, and their relationship with their father. So when we read “Aguantando” at the very end of the book and we go back in time to learn about the family’s journey of getting to America,  it makes it all the more heartbreaking to see their family all as one when we know they’ve had all those bumps in the road....

Diaz’s style, if one were to try to name it, is like a chameleon.

Diaz has a way of using seemingly unimportant, everyday details to represent something much deeper (pool table, gingko tree in “Edison, New Jersey”).

Objective correlatives are a prime example of how not only are Diaz’s form and content inseperable, but his form actually effects the content.

Diaz’s ever changing form continues to alter his content in “Ysrael” and “No Face.”

Something interesting also enters the picture when we define style, which is most commonly done by using the idea of genres to classify writing. Because this book is labeled as a “memoir,” we are making instant assumptions about the story, and about Diaz himself. But would it change our reading of the text if it was “fiction,” per se? The effect of the stories on the readers would change, and maybe even alter our interpretation on the content and messages of the literature. As Edna St. Vincent Millay said in 1925, “A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down.” When sharing any of their writing with the public, authors put themselves at stake for judgment and critique by their audience. And a book is most reflective of the author–or at least we assume so–when it is labeled as a memoir. So as readers, all the experiences that we see Yunior going through, we assume they come directly from Diaz’s life. But how is it fair to place a bounding, limiting box onto Diaz and his abilities as an author? Diaz could very well be exaggerating things, expanding on things, adding things to help create a sort of mood or affect. But does that break the rules and requirements of a “memoir”? Many would argue that it does. And this shows how tricky and restrictive it can be to place a name or category onto a style.

Diaz also blurs the line between fiction and the real when he uses fantasy as a way to reveal information about the characters and there emotions (Aguantando fantasy moment).

Diaz claims he wants to “make some mirrors so kids like [him] might see themselves reflected back.” Although he has the power to create this “mirror,” he portrays himself and people like him in a way that’s seemingly negative, what with drugs, intense family issues and scandals, and other things that would seem to reflect poorly on his culture. But maybe this is the truth. This is his life; this is not a peace of fiction that tries to artificially represent a group of people. Diaz is raw, honest, and truthful, but also poetic, lyrical, and intimate. He uses the power of style not to alter and hide the truth, but to embrace it and get in touch with its reality.

So really, in Diaz’s book there is no raw truth. There are no stripped down, naked facts. There is only what he gives us, which is his own spin on the truth. But is it reliable? Is it the truth? Can content exist outside of style? Everybody, every author, every person, tells their tale in their own unique way. But no matter who claims they have unbiased information, direct records, or the truth, everything we’ll ever see of anything will always have some sort of spin on it. So what can we call the truth? Did his dad really abandon his family the way Yunior claims he did? Did his mom really disappear for a while for the reasons Yunior claims she did? Will we ever know? Does it even matter? We have to treat his story as his own, personal truth. (Does the way Diaz/Yunior write about the events in his life affect our take away from the stories? Of course.)