Identity, Ethnicity, and Masculinity Theme Analysis

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe follows two teenage boys, Aristotle “Ari” and his best friend Dante, as they grow up over the course of two years in late-1980s El Paso, Texas. When the boys first meet at the local pool, they’re 15 and in many ways, have no idea who they are—Ari even suggests that until a person turns 18, their parents and teachers are the ones who get to “write their story.” As the boys grow up, however, they gradually begin to figure out who they are as men, as second-generation Mexican Americans, and ultimately, as young gay people in a homophobic world. As a whole, the novel suggests that this process of discovering one’s identity is anxiety-inducing in the best of circumstances, but is even more fraught when young people come up against conflicting and at times, harmful ideas about what it means to be a proper man.

Both Ari and Dante (but Dante in particular) struggle immensely with what it means to be Mexican—especially when neither of them speak Spanish well or have been to Mexico. To a degree, both boys want to be more Mexican than they think they are. Being Mexican is something they’re proud of, but it’s also not something to which that they feel especially connected—when Dante laments not knowing Spanish well and Ari points out that he could learn it, Dante insists that learning Spanish in school in the U.S. isn’t at all the same as learning Spanish as a native speaker, either in Mexico or in a predominately Spanish-speaking community in the states. Being Mexican, Dante suggests through this, means possessing certain skills that a person needs to learn beginning in infancy—it’s not something he or Ari can learn as teens or adults.

On the other hand, Ari and Dante, as well as their families, make it clear that not all aspects of the Mexican identity are worthy of aspiration. Ari regularly gives Mom grief by suggesting he get a job mowing lawns, which when Mom expresses exasperation and displeasure, Ari deems “too stereotypically Mexican.” Mom—and for that matter, Dante’s whole family (his dad is a college professor and his mom is a therapist)—wants her son to receive an education and do something more intellectual than manual labor. Importantly, Mom, a schoolteacher, snaps at Ari that having received a college education doesn’t make her or Mr. Quintana less Mexican—but as far as Ari and Dante are concerned, she’s not actually entirely correct. While Mom grew up in a Spanish-speaking community and has deep connections to Mexican culture, customs, and language while living and working in an American and English-speaking world, putting Ari in an American school where instruction is in English keeps him from comfortably bridging the cultural divide in the same way.

Ari and Dante begin to butt up against a similar kind of tension with their Mexican identities as they both begin to figure out their sexuality. The boys understand that as the only or de facto oldest son in their families (Ari’s older brother is in prison), they have a responsibility to their culture and to their parents to grow up, get married, and provide their parents grandchildren in the future. This is something that distresses Dante in particular—in anguish, he confesses to Ari that if he marries another man, he won’t be able to fulfill this expectation and will surely disappoint his parents. While Ari is able to far more successfully toe the line and look properly masculine and Mexican by working out, getting a red 1957 pickup truck, and looking big and angry, Dante is unable to fit into this role with the same success as his friend. Even before coming out, Dante is much more sensitive than what Ari suggests is proper for a Mexican man. Coming out as gay and kissing boys in public means that Dante effectively gives up any ability he may have to hide and, ultimately, keep himself safe.

The horrific beating that Dante suffers at the hands of four peers who catch him and another boy kissing in an alley speaks to the very real danger of not living up to these expectations. Not being able to make his parents happy with grandchildren pales in comparison to the fact that Dante and other gay teens like him find themselves in situations where other people (who embody the very identities they cannot) are motivated to hurt them or even kill them for their sexuality. With this, the novel implies that these idealized identities might not be worth aspiring to at all—they are, in a variety of ways, the very things that keep Ari and Dante from being fully comfortable with who they actually are.

While these dangers certainly don’t disappear at the end of the novel, Ari’s choice to accept that he’s also gay and has been in love with Dante since the moment they met suggests that coming to terms with one’s identity can nevertheless be a healing and transformative experience. Ari comes to understand that while he may still be in the process of figuring out how to connect with his Mexican identity, his love for Dante and their parents’ support for their relationship is enough to help him escape the intense shame he feels and, finally, begin to feel more at home in the world.