How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water: 12 Analytical Essay Prompts

These prompts are designed for close reading of Angie Cruz's How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water (2022). Each prompt focuses on specific scenes, character arcs, and structural choices unique to the novel. Evidence leads reference chapters from the twelve job-counseling sessions and the epilogue.

For deeper context, see the book overview, questions and answers, or profiles of key characters such as Cara Romero, Lulú Sánchez Peña, and Fernando.

1. Cara’s Evolving Relationship with Vulnerability

Why it matters: Cara begins the novel insisting she is strong and self-reliant, but her confession in Session Eight (the iron accident) and her eventual acceptance of help in the final chapter mark a significant character change. Tracking this shift reveals how the novel redefines strength.

Sample thesis direction: Through Cara's gradual willingness to admit mistakes and accept community aid, Cruz argues that true resilience includes vulnerability rather than solitary endurance.

Evidence leads:

In Session Two, Cara discharges herself from the hospital alone and cleans the taxi herself, proud of not bothering anyone.
In Session Eight, she finally narrates throwing the iron that hits Fernando's face, a confession she has avoided for years.
In the epilogue ("Two Months Later"), she accepts a loan from Ángela, Patricia's rent assistance, and Lulú's presence as a roommate.

2. Causality of Estrangement: The Iron Accident and Its Ripple Effects

Why it matters: The novel withholds the cause of Fernando's departure until Session Eight, using delayed disclosure to build tension. Examining how this single event shapes Cara's guilt, her relationship with Ángela, and her self-image illuminates the causal structure.

Sample thesis direction: Cruz uses the iron accident not as a plot twist but as a causal anchor that explains Cara's patterns of silence, shame, and over-control across the earlier sessions.

Evidence leads:

Session One: Cara flees Ricardo but says little about losing Fernando.
Session Three: Cara visits Fernando's apartment and agrees to stay away, but the reason for his anger remains unclear.
Session Eight: The full account—she threw an iron at the door in anger, hitting Fernando's face—is revealed alongside Ángela's accusation that Cara is like their mother.

3. The Friendship Between Cara and Lulú: Codependence or Mutual Care?

Why it matters: Cara and Lulú's relationship is the novel's central friendship, but it includes jealousy, competition, and moments of abandonment. Analyzing their bond challenges simplistic readings of sisterhood.

Sample thesis direction: While the surface narrative frames Cara and Lulú as loyal companions, their interactions betray patterns of envy, one-upmanship, and conditional support, suggesting that survival in precarity strains even the closest friendships.

Evidence leads:

Session Two: Cara admits relief when she sees Lulú suffer because of Adonis, thinking "finally, she could feel the misery of a son abandoning his mother."
Session Six: Lulú throws her faja out the window in crisis; Cara worries more about their shared Florida dream than about Lulú's pain.
Session Twelve: Cara offers Lulú a spare room, but only after she has inherited money—a shift in power dynamics.

4. Contrasting Scenes: The Statue of Liberty Climb Versus the Eviction Notice

Why it matters: The novel sets a triumphant scene of mobility (climbing to the crown) against bureaucratic documents signaling loss (eviction notice, rent invoices). Juxtaposing these moments highlights the tension between aspiration and structural barriers.

Sample thesis direction: By placing the Statue of Liberty climb (Session Six) in direct contrast with the 30‑day eviction notice (Session Nine), Cruz underscores the gap between immigrant dreams and the economic realities that constrain them.

Evidence leads:

Session Six: Cara climbs the 162 steps to the crown with Lulú, declaring "From Hato Mayor to the top of the Statue of Liberty."
Session Four: Document of rent arrears and a housekeeping ad.
Session Nine: The formal eviction notice arrives, undoing any sense of progress.

5. Gentrification and Housing Insecurity as a Recurring Theme

Why it matters: The novel repeatedly documents the displacement of long-time residents in Washington Heights. The building's changing tenant rules, rising rents, and the eviction of neighbors like Tita form a backdrop to Cara's personal story.

Sample thesis direction: Cruz uses the building's transformation—from a site of community barbecues to a monitored lobby with fake plants—to show how gentrification fractures the social networks that sustain low-income immigrants.

Evidence leads:

Session Two: Cara recalls chaining chairs to the lobby stairs and barbecuing; now management calls it a fire hazard.
Session Four: Tita is evicted for having a washing machine, then forced into a smaller, pricier unit.
Session Eight: The narrative interrupts Cara's confession with an invoice showing mounting rent debt.
Session Twelve: Lulú moves in with Cara, a makeshift solution to housing loss.

6. Symbolism of the Faja (Girdle)

Why it matters: The faja appears as a physical object that Cara and Lulú use to control their bodies. Lulú's act of throwing it out the window in Session Six turns the garment into a symbol of rejection of shame and pretense.

Sample thesis direction: Cruz deploys the faja as a multivalent symbol—representing bodily discipline, the burden of appearances, and the possibility of liberation when Lulú casts it away in a moment of crisis.

Evidence leads:

Session Six: Lulú always wears a faja "a size too small"; she throws it out the window while in crisis about Adonis.
Cara describes her own body with scrutiny, linking clothing and control.
The scene follows Lulú's confession that Adonis lost his job months ago; the faja's removal coincides with the collapse of her carefully maintained story.

7. Narrative Structure: The Job-Counseling Sessions as a Confessional Frame

Why it matters: The entire novel unfolds as a series of appointments with a career counselor, who remains unnamed and barely described. This frame shapes what Cara chooses to reveal and what she withholds.

Sample thesis direction: The session structure functions as an unofficial confession, where Cara's digressions, water breaks, and directives ("Write that down") mimic the rhythms of testimony, allowing her to assert agency over her own story even within an institutional setting.

Evidence leads:

Session One: Cara insists the session focus on her past before job-hunting, redirecting the interview.
Session Five: She rejects a nanny job offer, and the employer's "Not a match" verdict highlights the gap between institutional metrics and her lived expertise.
Session Twelve: The counselor recommends more sessions, implying the frame continues indefinitely—a structural open ending.

8. Foreshadowing: Alicia the Psychic's Letter and the Intuition Thread

Why it matters: Alicia the Psychic appears in Session Seven with a promise of fortune within a month. Lulú dismisses it as a scam, but Cara trusts it. This thread builds toward the inheritance from La Vieja Caridad and the Mother's Day delivery from Fernando.

Sample thesis direction: By treating the psychic's letter as both a potential scam and a genuine guide, Cruz blurs the line between superstition and intuition, ultimately validating Cara's trust in non-rational ways of knowing.

Evidence leads:

Session Seven: Cara receives the letter; Lulú calls it a scam, but Cara holds onto it.
Session Ten: Cara wins $25 on a scratch-off, viewing it as partial confirmation.
Session Twelve: She inherits $5,600 (not millions, but significant) and later follows Walter Mercado's advice; the novel's final line affirms that she trusts her intuition.

9. The Ending: Mother's Day Delivery and Reconciliation

Why it matters: The final scene—Cara receives a takeout delivery from Fernando with a note on Mother's Day—provides a resolution that is neither a dramatic reunion nor a simple happy ending. Analyzing this moment clarifies the novel's stance on family estrangement.

Sample thesis direction: Cruz chooses a muted reconciliation (a food delivery, no face-to-face meeting) that honors the complexity of broken trust, suggesting that healing can occur through small, symbolic acts rather than full reparation.

Evidence leads:

Session Twelve: Sabrina's mother spots Fernando on a lobby TV channel; Cara finds the delivery.
The note is not quoted verbatim but is described as meaningful.
Earlier sessions show Cara leaving the door open for Fernando (keeping his room, sending food, putting his name on the lease).
The final chapter is titled "Two Months Later," indicating that the session structure has ended, but life continues in this tentative new phase.

10. Intergenerational Trauma: The Mother-Daughter Line

Why it matters: Cara's relationship with her own mother (who locked her out and later beat Ángela) is mirrored in the way Cara raises Fernando and interacts with Ángela. The novel traces patterns of abuse and care across at least three generations.

Sample thesis direction: Through parallels between Mamá's rejection of Cara and Cara's alienation of Fernando, Cruz shows how offstage mothers—Cara's mother and Cara herself—transmit trauma through acts of discipline, silence, and conditional love.

Evidence leads:

Session One: Cara recalls her mother's violence and saying "Don't mess with a butcher."
Session Eight: When Ángela accuses Cara of being "just like Mamá," Cara's recounting of her own childhood beatings reframes the accusation as a cycle.
Session Nine: Cara's mother sides with Ricardo, slapping Cara and insulting Fernando.
Session Ten: The sisters reconcile with tears, but the underlying patterns are not fully resolved.

11. Immigration and Displacement: The Multiple Moves

Why it matters: Cara's geographic journey—from Hato Mayor to Washington Heights, with internal moves within the neighborhood—parallels her psychological journey. Each move is a response to violence, economic pressure, or family obligation.

Sample thesis direction: Cruz maps immigrant displacement onto physical spaces: Cara's repeated uprootings (fleeing Ricardo, renting Fernando's room, facing eviction) mirror the precariousness of building a life in a country that offers opportunity but no stability.

Evidence leads:

Session One: Cara flees the Dominican Republic after Cristián's machete attack.
Session Four: She rents Fernando's room to Pargat Singh to make ends meet.
Session Nine: A 30-day eviction notice threatens her home.
Session Twelve: She stays in the apartment by borrowing money, but the threat of displacement remains.

12. The Symbol of Channel 15: Surveillance as Community

Why it matters: Cara and Lulú watch the building's lobby camera on Channel 15 to know who comes and goes. This tool of surveillance becomes a way to maintain community ties and protect each other.

Sample thesis direction: Cruz reappropriates the surveillance camera as a community resource: what could be an instrument of control becomes a way for Cara and Lulú to care for vulnerable neighbors like La Vieja Caridad and to monitor incursions by police and outside management.

Evidence leads:

Session Two: Cara describes leaving Channel 15 on all day; she spots neighbors and goes down to help La Vieja Caridad.
Session Seven: Cara sees Sabrina kissing another girl on the camera, linking surveillance to queer visibility.
The same camera that management installed to control behavior allows Cara to feel connected and vigilant.