Drown by Junot Diaz

1. Order: What is the relation between the time of events (“real life” or “history”) and the time of the narrative (“story”) in Diaz’s “Drown”? How does the author reorder the temporal sequence of events? Why do you think Diaz deviates from a strictly chronological order? What effect does this chronological reshuffling produce?2. Duration: What forms of narrative duration (summary, dramatic scene, narrative stasis, and ellipsis; see Genette pp. 284-285) does the story employ? Why do you think Diaz favors these forms?3. Frequency: What modes of narrative frequency (singulative, repetitive, and iterative; see Genette pp. 286) does Diaz use in “Drown”? Why and to what effect?4. And now draw conclusions: How does the temporal structure of the story affect our interpretation of events and the characters involved? What does this temporal rearrangement of events allow us to learn about the central character(s) that we may have most likely missed if the narrative was chronologically ordered?