Clothing ("Ysrael," Dramatic Irony)
"He wore the same outfit when he went to see these girls, a shirt and pants that my father had sent him from the States last Christmas." ("Ysrael," 6)
"Ysrael's sandals were of stiff leather and his clothes were Northamerican." ("Ysrael," 15)
When read together, the quotes above constitute an example of dramatic irony within "Ysrael," the first short story of Drown. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience finds out important information about a character that the said character does not acknowledge or know about in the text. When Rafa first learns about Ysrael from his little brother, he quickly decides to track him down so that he can see Ysrael's deformed face. Rafa's main motivation for tracking down Ysrael is his fascination with Ysrael's face. He pinches Yunior before they go to bed in order to investigate how Ysrael's face might have been affected by the pig which attacked him: "My brother was pinching my face during the night, like I was a mango. The cheeks, he said. And the chin. But the forehead would be a lot harder" (9). In other words, Rafa is drawn to that which makes Ysrael different from him. What Rafa does not acknowledge, however, are the similarities he shares with Ysrael. The text clues us in to this fact through the description of Rafa and Ysrael's clothing, which both come from America. The boys also share that their fathers are currently working in New York.
Another subtle element of irony in "Ysrael" comes from the fact that Ysrael seemingly has more advantages than Rafa and Yunior despite his disability. For example, Yunior notices that Ysrael's kite is well-made: "the kite was no handmade local job. It had been manufactured abroad" (16). Ysrael reveals to them that his father sent him the kite from the United States. This causes a twinge of jealousy in Rafa and Yunior, whose father also lives in the United States but who only "sent [them] letters and an occasional shirt or pair of jeans for Christmas" (16).
A Bright Future for Aurora and Lucero ("Aurora," Dramatic Irony)
"That's the sort of shit that you can't get used to, no matter who you are. She looked at her drawings. I made up this whole new life in there. You should have seen it. The two of us had kids, a big blue house, hobbies, the whole fucking thing. She ran her nails over my side. A week from then she would be asking me again, begging actually, telling me all the good things we'd do and after a while I hit her and made the blood come out of her ear like a worm but right then, in that apartment, we seemed like we were normal folks. Like maybe everything was fine." ("Aurora," 65)
This moment of dramatic irony comes right at the end of "Aurora," the third story from Drown. In this passage, Lucero is remembering what Aurora told him right after she got out of juvie, during a moment in their relationship that felt "better" than ever: "You know how it is when you get back with somebody you've loved. It felt better than it ever was, better than it ever could be again" (64). Aurora imagines a bright future for herself and Lucero while in solitary confinement, with "kids," "a big blue house," and "hobbies." However, Aurora's dream—of an idealized, middle-class American existence—is just as uncertain and intangible as the drawings that she leaves on the walls in crayons. That Lucero matter-of-factly describes the way they hurt each other—"She ran her her nails over my side... and after a while I hit her and made the blood come out of her ear like a worm"—in the same breath as he suggests hope for the future brings home this irony. As a result, even though the characters lull themselves into this fantasy that "everything was fine," the readers know better.
Expectorating ("Drown," Verbal Irony)
"Tell me. He hated when I knew something he didn't. He put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me under. He was wearing a cross and cutoff jeans. He was stronger than me and held me down until water flooded my nose and throat. Even then I didn't tell him; he thought I didn't read, not even the dictionaries." ("Drown," 94)
This moment from "Drown" constitutes verbal irony because the narrator, Yunior, is revealing something to us that is different from what he says on the surface. When he stays silent in response to Beto's question, he denies revealing to his friend where he learned the definition of the word "expectorating." Beto's responds by pushing Yunior's head under the water, and Yunior tells us that Beto "thought I didn't read, not even dictionaries." Here, Yunior is pointing out Beto's misconception, which implies to us that he does read things, even though he doesn't come right out and say it. In this way, the irony furthers our understanding of Yunior at this point in his life, even if he doesn't tell us this detail about himself directly.
Dan ("Edison, New Jersey," Verbal Irony)
"The last time I saw her in person was in Hoboken. She was with Dan and hadn't yet told me about him and hurried across the street in her high clogs to avoid me and my boys, who even then could sense me turning, turning into the motherfucker who'll put a fist through anything." ("Edison, New Jersey," 127)
This passage contains a moment of verbal irony. When describing his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend, the narrator does not insult him directly but fills the word Dan, which is italicized, with so much contempt that the reader knows how he feels. The fact that Díaz italicizes Dan in this moment speaks to the narrator's hatred of this man, who earlier he refers to as a zángano (lazy person). Through this simple italicization, we also get a sense of the emotional turmoil that the narrator feels at hearing that his ex-girlfriend has moved on. Throughout the story, it becomes more and more clear that he is still in love with her. The word Dan is separated from the rest of the text through italics, making him stand out like a sore thumb in the narrator's story. It is a succinct way to portray a wealth of hatred and mixed emotions without having to explicitly say so.
