Chapter 4 Summary

The chapter begins and ends with descriptions of the narrator's relationship with Maria. At the beginning of the chapter, he describes visiting with her in Chicago over the Christmas vacation while he's visiting his family. During one conversation, they each reveal to the other that they are homosexual, although Maria adds that she is also attracted to, and able to sexually function with, men. At that point, the narrator believes that he is not at all interested in women. But at the end of the chapter, when Maria comes to visit at the end of the school year and after she has been in the narrator's apartment for a few days, they find themselves experiencing passionate sexual attraction to each other and make love several times. During both visits, the narrator and Maria have intense philosophical discussions, one of which centers around the...