Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe presents two opposing visions of how people can relate to others: Ari and his family are overwhelmingly silent and ignore past trauma, such as Dad’s experiences in the Vietnam War and the reason why Ari’s older brother, Bernardo, is in prison. Dante and his family, on the other hand, are open, communicative, and affectionate with each other and with others. Especially as Ari begins to connect with Dad and figure out what happened to Bernardo, the novel goes to great lengths to show that remaining silent about something can be just as traumatizing as experiencing something traumatic firsthand, while speaking and attempting to connect with others is possibly not a foolproof way to guard against trauma, but is certainly more effective than silence.
When it comes to trauma, Aristotle and Dante clearly show that trauma is as much something that happens in an instant (as when the car hits Ari) as it is something that’s passed down through generations. While Ari, who was born after Dad’s return from Vietnam, has no memories of his dad before the war or his return, he nevertheless suffers, too, from his dad’s trauma. Dad’s silence and unwillingness to speak to Ari about anything, especially the war, makes Ari feel even more alone and put-upon. Mom tells Ari that Dad carries the war inside him, something that Ari sees happening to him too—he may not remember the war, but he lives day in and day out with another person’s trauma of the war. Especially given Ari’s belief that Dad should be more available to him to teach him about how to be a man in the world and guide him toward adulthood, Dad’s silence is especially offensive to Ari. Dad’s secrecy about the war means that he’s not just depriving Ari of a relationship, he’s also inadvertently teaching Ari that the only way to deal with trauma is through silence.
In Dad’s defense, he’s not the only one in the family who uses silence and withdrawal to cope with their trauma. In addition to Dad’s silence about the Vietnam War, Ari’s primary conflict with his parents has to do with the silence and the mystery surrounding Bernardo, Ari’s older brother, who ended up in prison when Ari was four. Ari sees that his parents and sisters act as though Bernardo is dead or doesn’t exist to them—indeed, the reader doesn’t even learn Bernardo’s name until much later in the novel, reinforcing the sense of secrecy and silence around the topic. Similarly to the way that Ari feels that he has to live with the trauma of Dad’s experience with the war, Ari feels as though he also has to suffer because of what’s happening to his brother. All Ari knows for much of the novel is that Bernardo was an angry boy who got too violent one time—and so Ari feels the pressure to not be violent or step out of line. He feels that it is his obligation to take on the traditional role of the oldest male sibling in his family—all without knowing exactly what it is he’s supposed to be avoiding in the first place. This is made even more difficult by the fact that Ari is angry; he’s a teenage boy under a lot of pressure that he doesn’t fully understand. Because of this, when bad things do happen to him, he feels he has no choice but to lash out at others whether they deserve it or not—and in this way, he perpetuates the cycle of silence, violence, and trauma because he feels he has no choice but to do so and no way to remedy the silence in his own home.
Dante, and the Quintana family as a whole, present a very different view of how to interact with others. Dante himself often cries, and his whole family is open and physically affectionate with each other. The novel suggests that this way of existing is healthier in many ways, if scary for someone like Ari—though he’s somewhat jealous and wonders what it’d be like to kiss his dad in greeting, Dante’s insistence that Ari talk is still wildly uncomfortable for Ari. This makes it very clear that relearning how to healthily deal with silence and ultimately break it is a difficult project—indeed, it takes Ari two years, until the very end of the novel, to break his own silence about his sexuality and confess his love to Dante, something that makes him feel freer and happier than he ever has.
As Ari grows up and as his family becomes closer to Dante’s, Ari’s family gradually begins to borrow some of the Quintana family’s willingness to communicate openly. Dad begins to open up about his experience in the war and also tells Ari about what Bernardo did, and importantly for Ari, his parents let him in on the fact that his beloved Aunt Ophelia (who dies suddenly of a stroke) was a lesbian, and so was shunned by everyone in the extended family aside from Mom and Dad. This is important information for Ari as he begins to come to terms with his sexuality. This openness that Ari begins to cultivate with his parents gives him the courage and willingness to be truthful with Dante about his feelings and begin to let go of his anger, making the case that the only way to recover from one’s own trauma or that of one’s family is to begin to talk about it openly and truthfully.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Silence and Trauma vs. Communication ThemeTracker
Silence and Trauma vs. Communication Quotes in Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
So that’s the way it was. When I was eight, I didn’t know anything about war. I didn’t even know what a conscience was. All I knew is that sometimes my father was sad. I hated that he was sad. It made me sad too. I didn’t like sad.
So I was the son of a man who had Vietnam living inside him. Yeah, I had all kinds of tragic reasons for feeling sorry for myself. Being fifteen didn’t help. Sometimes I thought that being fifteen was the worst tragedy of all.
It made me smile, the way they got along, the easy and affectionate way they talked to each other as if love between a father and a son was simple and uncomplicated. My mom and I, sometimes the thing we had between us was easy and uncomplicated. Sometimes. But me and my dad, we didn’t have that. I wondered what that would be like, to walk into a room and kiss my father.
“My dad says it’s all right if people make fun of you. You know what he said to me? He said, ‘Dante, you’re an intellectual. That’s who you are. Don’t be ashamed of that.’”
I noticed his smile was a little sad. Maybe everyone was a little sad. Maybe so.
“Ari, I’m trying not to be ashamed.”
I knew what it was like to be ashamed. Only, Dante knew why. And I didn’t.
I kept staring down at the floor. And then I heard my father’s voice in the room again. “I have bad dreams too, Ari.”
I wanted to ask him if his dreams were about the war or about my brother. I wanted to ask him if he woke up as scared as me.
All I did was smile at him. He’d told me something about himself. I was happy.
Because my older brother was in prison and maybe my mother and father blamed themselves. If only they’d said something, done something. They weren’t going to make that mistake again. So I was stuck with my family’s guilt—a guilt that not even my mother would talk about. She sometimes mentioned my brother in passing. But she never said his name.
This is what I understood: a woman like Mrs. Quintana didn’t use the word “love” very often. When she said that word, she meant it. And one more thing I understood: Dante’s mother loved him more than he would ever know. I didn’t know what to do with that piece of information. So I just kept it inside. That’s what I did with everything. Kept it inside.
I guess it was enough just to hear the sound of Dante’s voice. It was like listening to a song. I kept thinking about the bird with the broken wing. Nobody told me what happened to the bird. And I couldn’t even ask because I would be breaking my own rule about not talking about the accident.
When he was done, I opened my eyes. Tears were falling down his face. I should have expected that. I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to tell him that it was me who should be crying.
Dante had this look on his face. He looked like an angel. And all I wanted to do was put my fist through his jaw. I couldn’t stand my own cruelty.
Maybe my dad just didn’t need words to get by in the world. I wasn’t like that. Well, I was like that on the outside, pretending not to need words. But I wasn’t like that on the inside.
I’d figured something out about myself: on the inside, I wasn’t like my dad at all. On the inside I was more like Dante. That really scared me.
The thing is I love my dad. My mom too. And I keep wondering what they’re going to say when I tell them that someday I want to marry a boy. I wonder how that’s going to go over? I’m the only son. What’s going to happen with the grandchildren thing? I hate that I’m going to disappoint them, Ari. I know I’ve disappointed you too.
“You’re in high school, Ari. You’re not looking for a profession. You’re just looking for a way to earn some money. You’re in transition.”
“In transition? What kind of a Mexican mother are you?”
“I’m an educated woman. That doesn’t un-Mexicanize me, Ari.”
She sounded a little angry. I loved her anger and wished I had more of it. Her anger was different than mine or my father’s. Her anger didn’t paralyze her.
Sometimes parents loved their sons so much that they made a romance out of their lives. They thought our youth could help us overcome everything. Maybe moms and dads forget about this one small fact: being on the verge of seventeen could be harsh and painful and confusing. Being on the verge of seventeen could really suck.
“We’ll play that game,” I said. “That game you made up to beat the hell out of your tennis shoes.”
“It was fun, wasn’t it?”
The way he said that. Like he knew we would never play that game again. We were too old now. We’d lost something and we both knew it.
“I’m sorry about last night,” I said. “It’s just that sometimes I have things running around inside me, these feelings. I don’t always know what to do with them. That probably doesn’t make any sense.”
“It sounds normal, Ari.”
“I don’t think I’m so normal.”
“Feeling things is normal.”
“Except I’m angry. And I don’t really know where all that anger comes from.”
“Maybe if we talked more.”
“Well, which one of us is good with words, Dad?”
I left him alone for a while. But then, I decided I wanted to be with him. I decided that maybe we left each other alone too much. Leaving each other alone was killing us.
He looked tired but at that moment, as we sat at the kitchen table, there was something young about him. And I thought that maybe he was changing into someone else.
Everyone was always becoming someone else.
Sometimes, when you were older, you became someone younger. And me, I felt old. How can a guy who’s about to turn seventeen feel old?
“He was so happy that you were going to have another baby. And not just because he was going to be a big brother. And he said, ‘He has to be a boy and he has to like girls.’ That’s what he said. So that you could have grandchildren. So that you could be happy.”
“I don’t care about grandchildren. I care about Dante.”
And loved my father too, for the careful way he spoke. I came to understand that my father was a careful man. To be careful with people and with words was a rare and beautiful thing.
“What am I going to do?”
My father’s voice was soft. “Dante didn’t run. I keep picturing him taking all those blows. But he didn’t run.”
“Okay,” I said. For once in my life, I understood my father perfectly.
And he understood me.
