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Part Four, Chapter Twenty-One
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity, Ethnicity, and Masculinity
Silence and Trauma vs. Communication
Family and Coming of Age
Intellectualism and Emotion vs. Physical Strength
Summary
Analysis
One night, Mom and Dad go to a wedding and leave Ari at home. Charlie shows up as Ari is making food. Charlie always looks hungry and though Ari thinks that he won’t make Charlie food, he offers to do so anyway. Charlie refuses and invites Ari to try heroin with him. Ari refuses, so Charlie insults Ari and calls him gay. After Charlie leaves, Ari thinks that he liked Charlie until he got so into drugs. He is curious about heroin, but he’s not ready to try it. Ari thinks about Dante and drinking, and wonders what it’d be like to get drunk. He wonders if Bernardo is in prison because of drugs. Ari knows that he loved Bernardo a lot when he was a kid.
Charlie calling Ari gay brings to the forefront the fact that Ari and Dante are living in a homophobic world, even if they themselves aren’t fully out yet. This shows Ari how difficult life could be, both as Dante’s friend and as a young gay man himself. Refusing to try heroin with Charlie, however, suggests that Ari is becoming more secure in his identity and is learning that he needs to try new things in his own time, not just because he’s pressured to do so.
Themes
Ari doesn’t know why, but he goes out and finds an old drunk man begging outside of a convenience store. He gives the man money for two six-packs, one for the man and one for Ari. Ari feels bad for using the man. He starts to drive into the desert, but hears Mom’s voice in his head and angrily heads home to sit in the driveway and drink. Ari chugs the first two beers and then thinks about dreams, Bernardo, Dante, and Ileana. He tells Legs that he loves her and wonders why he’s not more grateful for what he has. He wonders why the seasons exist and thinks that winter won’t help him. Ari thinks that he wants a life, but doesn’t know what that means. He decides that he’d like to kiss someone and then stumbles into bed. Ari doesn’t dream.
It’s concerning that Ari doesn’t dream after getting drunk, as it suggests that Ari may choose to rely on alcohol as a crutch to help him with the dreams in the same way that Dad smokes cigarettes. This opens up the possibility that Ari is even more similar to Dad in this sense than he thought, as he’s learning both silence and how to use substances to deal with the silence from Dad. Hearing Mom’s voice offers hope that not all is lost for Ari. He has Mom as a role model for healthier behavior, and her presence in his mind shows how strong her influence is.
Themes
