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Part Six, Chapter 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
When Ari wakes up, he feels funny, and not just because of his dream and wanting to masturbate. He walks to Dante’s house to get Legs. Mr. Quintana answers and Legs is thrilled to see Ari. Ari notices that Mr. Quintana looks like something is wrong. Mr. Quintana says that Dante is in the hospital after being beaten and invites Ari in for coffee. They sit and Mr. Quintana asks how close Ari is to Dante. Ari plays dumb, but can tell that Mr. Quintana wants to know if Ari knew that Dante is gay. Ari asks if Dante told Mr. Quintana, and says that Dante shared that he’d like to marry or at least kiss another boy.
Ari plays dumb here in an attempt to protect Dante’s privacy, which speaks to how loyal Ari is to his friend and how misguided (though understandable) Dante’s fear that Ari would abandon him was. Importantly, leveling with Mr. Quintana like this catapults Ari into a situation where he has to understand that though Mr. Quintana is an adult, he too made mistakes in how he interacted with Dante, since he now knows that Dante was afraid of coming out.
Themes
Mr. Quintana says that he thinks he knew from the way that Dante looks at Ari, but he doesn’t know why Dante didn’t tell him. Ari feels like he’s betraying Dante as he says that Dante didn’t want to betray Mr. Quintana. Mr. Quintana asks Ari to call him Sam, and Ari points out that Dante loves his dad. Ari says that Dante was thrilled that they were having another baby and was insistent that the baby be a boy who liked girls, so Sam and Mrs. Quintana could have grandchildren. Sam cries and says he cares about Dante, not grandchildren. He says that they beat Dante and cracked his ribs. Ari wants to hold Sam.
Asking Ari to call him Sam represents a major turning point in Ari’s development his role in relation to the adults in his life. With this change in address, Ari has to see Mr. Quintana as more of a peer who, though he’s far more open than Ari and Dad are, still remained silent in important ways that ended up being harmful for Dante. Insisting that he doesn’t care about grandchildren, however, shows that Sam loves Dante more than anything.
Themes
