Choose one story and analyze the characters within it through the lens of intersectionality. How do race, gender, class, and sexual orientation converge upon your chosen character(s) to produce layered inequalities and/or social and interpersonal conflict?

Choose three male characters and form a five-paragraph literary analysis essay which parses, in detail, the themes about masculinity that Díaz articulates through them.

What is the role of women in Drown? Choose three female characters and write a five-paragraph literary analysis essay that explains the role and function of female characters in the collection. Does Díaz use female characters to mount his critique of hypermasculinity, or does he ultimately fall into heterosexist traps through his own representation of them? Or is it a mixture of both?