Superheroes

When I first realized “No Face” was revisiting the character of Ysrael from the first story, I was intrigued, because I remember that opening story being really good, and also terrified, because Ysrael’s life seems horribly depressing and dark and I didn’t want to know what became of him. “No Face” took all my expectations and POW zapped them to pieces. Ysrael’s life in “No Face,” while incredibly bleak and traumatic, is actually portrayed as an adventure, something he can still have fun with. Ysrael spends his time scavenging for coins among unconscious drunks, getting harassed on the street for helping cats, and being attacked by mobs of kids, all because of his legendary deformity. He describes the people in his world, with the exception of Father Lou and his own family, as his enemies. And yet he is smiling under his mask. He is a superhero, and he enjoys the thrill of escape. While he’s certainly not invulnerable, throughout this story he takes an extremely negative situation and sees it as just part of his world, nothing he can’t handle with his supernatural abilities. After being chased off by the cleaning woman he even shows off a little: “he’d grip the bars of the gate and pull them a bit apart, grunting, to show her who she was messing with” (Diaz 155).

It makes perfect sense to me that Ysrael would identify with a superhero, who often start their career with some sort of accident and have powers that could be seen as a kind of defect. They’re tough, and they face a lot of enemies but they always defeat the evil powers around them. “Today he buys Kaliman, who takes no shit and wears a turban. If his face were covered he’d be perfect” (Diaz 155). As for Ysrael’s actual superpowers, I think it’s pretty clear that--while he is incredibly fast and strong--they don’t literally exist. The fact that they’re presented to the reader as fact though, shows us that they are very real in Ysrael’s mind and that he is able to use his imagination to escape his circumstances. I think it’s pretty impressive that this kid who wears a flea-infested mask, who’s accused of eating children and is attacked at random, is still able to feel confident in himself, like he’s on top of the world. At the same time, it’s possible that all of this is completely incorrect. We know it’s not really Ysrael narrating this story, so any resolution we may start to have thinking that Ysrael is really doing fine, is kind of thwarted by the fact that we really don’t know what’s going on in his head. While the narrative voice reminds me of a sports commentator, always with a sense of excitement and suspense, constantly presenting Ysrael as heroic and admirable, it’s still an outside view, not Ysrael’s own voice. (I kept being a little shocked realizing the story is in 3rd person. It feels like it’s Ysrael narrating, but it can’t be).

The idea that Yunior is narrating the story is intriguing and makes a lot of sense to me. Yunior was always more understanding of Ysrael than the other children and less easily motivated towards violence. He still participated in tormenting him in gangs, feeling especially accomplished about hitting Ysrael in the back with a rock. “We laughed and went back to our baseball games and forgot him until he came to town again and then we dropped what we were doing and chased him” (Diaz15). But Yunior’s narration has always shown him to be a gentler character who clashes a little with his society’s definition of masculinity and toughness. He seemed a little out of place even in the gang of kids, and is shocked when his brother knocks Ysrael out from behind to get a glimpse of his face. By narrating “No Face” to us, it’s almost like Yunior is trying to make amends, or to go back and try to comprehend what Ysrael’s life was like and who he really was: just another boy, a potential classmate or even friend. But no! Ysrael was special, powerful in his own way, and someone who Yunior ultimately respected, even admired. We don’t really know if Ysrael actually sees himself as a superhero, but by choosing to narrate “No Face” in such an enthralling style, it’s clear that Yunior did see him that way, as someone out fighting to survive, a legendary figure, and maybe an intimidating one too. If Yunior is narrating, “No Face” really tells us a lot more about Yunior’s character and his ability to empathize than it does about Ysrael himself. This fits since the collection as a whole is kind of about Yunior’s maturation and growing up in a tough world, however I was kind of disappointed to realize that this means “No Face” may not be even close to Ysrael’s reality.

Ysrael’s physical abilities are pretty indisputable from the story “Ysrael,” and if he did go to a comic book store every week, it’s likely that he would still have the same wild imagination and be able to connect to the characters. However, I find it incredibly unlikely that Yunior ever went back and sat down with Ysrael like he did with Nilda, or this story would probably be told in a style more similar to that of “Negocios.” While I could imagine child-Yunior being a bit of a stalker, I don’t think he observed all of the events in this story and I think large portions of “No Face” are fictional. Ysrael continues to be more of a legend and while we can see from this story that Yunior wishes to understand him, in reality I don’t see Ysrael’s outlook as being very promising at all. There’s no way a teenager or adult can go on pretending to be a superhero and not be completely written off (not that Ysrael isn’t already exiled from society). It brings me back to the ending of “Ysrael,” after Rafa and Yunior have seen his face and are riding the bus home:

“Ysrael will be OK, I said.

Don’t bet on it.

They’re going to fix him. …

Yunior, he said tiredly. They aren’t going to do shit to him.

How do you know?

I know, he said” (Diaz 19).