The Theme Of Love In Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe

793 Words2 Pages

Imagine you and your best friend processing your relationship to the point where both of you love each other. Seems normal? The love transforms. Now one of you wants to kiss the other. In Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, two teenage boys become best friends after a couple of days. As time passed, Dante desired to kiss Ari and they do which directly connects to their homosexual love that Sáenz depicts with tennis shoes. Throughout the book, tennis shoes display Ari and Dante’s homosexual love for one another by revealing them as characters who refuse to value shoes. In the process of their friendship, Ari notices Dante’s war with shoes. Dante consistently removes his shoes whenever possible, even if it means for a second because he never felt comfortable with them on. Dante and Ari would skateboard to the park and “he’d take off his tennis shoes” (44). Another time …show more content…

Midway through, they appreciate the shoes a bit more but still remove their shoes whenever possible. After a while, Ari asks Dante if they will ever play the javelin game again, but with tennis shoes and Dante replies with a question. Then Ari says, “Like he knew we would never play that game again” (249). The fact that he uses “never” means their feelings towards each other will not return to the same state when they first met and had no feelings. In addition, they traveled to the desert together and it begins to rain. Ari and Dante decides to take off all of their clothes and just run around. They grew closer and Dante could feel the connection between them. He decides to take off “Everything except his tennis shoes” (272). Dante finally let go and became his true self. Finally, at the end Dante sent Ari a pair of shoes and Ari said, “I love these things” (357). He also, learned not to hide his true

Open Document