Zhang 5
Michael Zhang
Mr. Taira
Language Arts
15 September 2018
When you meet conflicts, try to make your own decision and communicate with others from Benjamin Alire Saenz’s book Aristotle And Dante Discover the Secrets of The Universe
In the life, people always meet different types of conflicts, but the most common conflict is person vs. self. People struggle with themselves, they can’t figure out what to decide or they might struggle with conflicting feelings or emotions. Like things happened in Benjamin Alire Saenz’s Aristotle And Dante Discover the Secrets of The Universe. This book’s plot is about Aristotle and Dante who become best friends at the beginning of the book, and then spend the rest of the book going through the trials and tribulations of being teenagers and going through life and finding out who they are and what they want to be. They are exact opposites, they learn about each other. As they grow closer, they begin to care more about each other. Throughout the whole book, they are trying to discover the secrets of the universe. In the book, the author is trying to convey the message: Find yourself and be yourself when you are facing the conflicts, don’t be disturbed by other conditions. I believe being yourself means that a person should be confident and have faith in the decisions they make. On the other hand, the author also encourages his readers to seek help from others, by communicating with them about your problems when you confused. First, I will talk about making confident decisions.
Being yourself, means being confident about your own decisions. Every decision you make will influence your life, and you can learn to control your own life from these decisions. In the book, there are also some examples can show this message. Dante was bullied by other kids in the neighborhood, Ari went to find the “bellwether” and revenged for Dante, because that’s his own decision.
I grabbed him by the neck and pulled him up. “Get in,” I said “What the hell crawled up your ass, Ari?” “Get in,” I said. I threw him against the truck. “What’s wrong with you, man?” He took a swing at me. That was all I need. I just went to it. His nose was bleeding. That didn’t stop me. It didn’t take long before he was on the ground. I was saying things to him, cursing at him. (314-315)
Ari was mad, and he decided to revenge for Dante, so he just followed his own mind, he beat the boy who bullied Dante. However Ari didn’t care about others’ resistances:
My dad came out of the house and stood on the front porch. He looked at me. I didn’t like the look on his face. “I need to talk to you,” he said. He’d never said that to me before. Not ever. His voice made me afraid. “I just got a call from Mr. Rodriguez.” I didn’t say anything. “What’s wrong with y...
