Society is one of the main reasons why one transmutes himself and it results in him losing his identity or make him interpret his identity the erroneous way. The book’s name is Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz. In this book, there a boy named the Aristotle (Ari) who is struggling with personal problems like his father had survived a war and his brother is in jail, his mom had a breakdown after his brother was in jail. These traumatic events result in him keeping all his feeling to himself. As Ari doesn’t express his emotions people around him thinks he is weird and tries to avoid him. Ari wants to be more acceptable by society, so he obnubilates his true identity by changing his actual sexuality. He meets his friend Dante who is authentically open and comfortable with his identity, which makes Ari question identity.
As Ari and Dante become proximate friends, they both develop feelings for each other. Dante is comfortable with it, but Ari doesn’t want to believe it so he ignores it. At the cessation of the book, Ari’s parents have to be the one who has to tell him his true identity and they all try to become comfortable with their pasts and identity. In the book Aristotle and Dante, Saenz uses the indirect characterization personality, to express the theme that to be accepted by society, one changes themselves, not based on their choices but the society’s, which results in them losing their true authentic self.
Saenz draws more attention to the changes in Ari’s personality, especially in the commencement and the terminus of the book, such as expressing his emotion and his noetic conceptions towards his sexuality to demonstrate that Ari’s changes were based on society’s prospects and not his, which results in him losing his own self and he culminates up probing his true self throughout the book. After some time of Ari and Dante’s friendship, Ari wonders, “ Maybe it [is] because Dante seemed to make himself fit everywhere he went. And [Ari] always [feels] that I [don’t] belong anywhere. I [don’t] even belong in my own body – especially in my own body. I [am] changing into someone I don’t know. The change [hurts] but I [don’t] know why it hurt. And nothing about my own emotions made any sense” (81). He changes himself by keeping his feelings to himself and not expressing them, even to his parents.
Ari doesn’t even feel like he [belongs in his own body] which attests that he changed so much that he doesn’t even completely know his own self. Ari thinks that he should be a girl and not a guy as he has a sexuality which is very uncommon in guys so he thinks that he doesn’t even belong in his body. He states that the change hurts which explicates that the change is something against his will but to be more like other people he still does completely change. He hides his sexuality by keeping it deep inside and suppressing it every time it came out or gave a hint that he is homosexual.
Later near the end of the book, Ari’s parents say, ”The real problem — for you, anyway — is that you’re in love with him. ……. Later near the end of the book, Ari’s parents say, ”The real problem — for you, anyway — is that you’re in love with him. ‘Ashamed of what?’ my mom [says]. ‘Of loving Dante?’.’I am a guy. He is a guy. It’s not the way things are supposed to be’[Ari says](349). Ari has the mindset that a guy is supposed to like a girl and not a gay which causes him to interpret his own identity. This quote clearly expresses the thought that he didn’t want to believe his sexuality is not like others. He was so engrossed in being the way society expects him to be that he didn’t even have the interest to explore his own self.
The phrase ‘He is a guy. It’s not the way things are supposed to be’ explains that he believes that the way his sexuality is, isn’t right. The society expects a gender to like the opposite gender, and Ari wants to be like the way society expects him to be. This leads him to interprets his identity in the wrong way and he forgets his true self to the point where his parents have to come up to him and help him identify his actual personality. In conclusion, Saenz uses the indirect characterization of Ari’s identity to express the theme that one shouldn’t change his identity else the consequences will be something that will eradicate their true identity.
In conclusion, Saenz uses the indirect characterization of Ari’s personality to express the theme that to be more acceptable by the society one changes himself on the basis of society’s expectation, which results in them losing their true self. The world is a place where everybody thinks them as the best, but there are some people who are perplexed about their true identity so there trying to be like a person the society expects them to be which results in them to lose their true authentic self. Through this book, Saenz endeavors to convey to us that we should be acceptable to every person, no matter their identity.
