The Cheater's Guide To Love By Junot Diaz

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In short story “The Cheater’s Guide to Love,” written by Junot Diaz, we observe infidelity and the negative effects it has on relationships. Anyone who cheats will eventually get caught and will have to deal with the consequences. People tend to overlook the fact that most relationships are unlikely to survive after infidelity. Trust becomes an issue after someone has been unfaithful. Yunior, the main character in this story, encounters conflict as he struggles to move on with his life after his fiancée discovers that he has been unfaithful. Over a six-year period, the author reveals how his unfaithfulness has an effect on his health and his relationships. Yunior is a philanderer who does not respect women. He treats women as objects …show more content…

“Yes, she’s really young and you fuck a whole lot, and during the act the two of you cling to each other for dear life, but afterward you peel away like you’re ashamed of yourselves.” (Diaz 7) They date for a couple of months and she ends the relationship to start another with a fellow class mate. Months later, Yunior arrives home to find the college law student in the lobby of his apartment building. She informs him that she is pregnant with his child. “I have nowhere to go. I can’t go back to my family.” (Diaz 9) Yunior lets allows her move into his apartment. Yunior’s writes in his journal “Only a bitch of color comes to Harvard to get pregnant. White women don’t do that. Asian women don’t do that. Only fucking black and Latina women. Why go to all the trouble to get into Harvard just to get knocked up? You could have stayed on the block and done that shit.” (Diaz 10) The law student reads the notebook and throws it in his face. “I fucking hate you, she wails.” (Diaz 10) This causes tension and she barely speaks to YUNIOR for the remainder of the time that she is at his apartment. Yunior receives a phone call that the student is in labor and rushes to the hospital. Upon his entry into the Delivery Room, the student shrieks, “I don’t want him in here. He’s not the father.” (Diaz 12) When Yunior realized that the child was not his he was …show more content…

Throughout the story, Yunior faced conflicts with his health and his relationships. Yunior tried to use exercise as a distraction but encountered one physical setback after another. Yunior’s sexual needs ruined his relationship with Noemi. If Yunior had used a condom, he could have avoided the whole pregnancy fiasco with the college student. Yunior’s affair with the married woman gave him an idea about how it felt to be the other person. By the end of the story, it seemed as though Yunior had began to realize how awfully he treated the women with whom he had a

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