Superhero Mindset
Ysrael is my favorite out of all the characters in Junot Díaz’s Drown . Díaz could have modeled Ysrael’s character in a very different way. He could have focused on the bad parts of Ysrael’s life, like the fact that he is physically deformed and bullied everywhere he goes, and make Ysrael into a one-dimensional character for whom all the reader feels is pity. But Díaz doesn’t do this, and instead the reader feels a whole range of emotions for Ysrael when we see what goes on inside his head in "No Face." The story is framed like a superhero narrative, and when it comes to superheroes, Ysrael definitely fits the bill. His life story has all the conventions of a stereotypical Marvel or DC superhero comic. For example, Ysrael has a pretty brutal origins story that causes him to become No Face and still haunts him in the present-day. This is seen in his dream about the pig ripping off his face when he was little: On some nights he opens his eyes and the pig has come back. Alw