A Raisin in the Sun
BENEATHA: "He gave away the money, Asagai..."
ASAGAI: "Who gave the money away?"
BENEATHA: "The insurance money. My brother gave it away."
ASAGAI: "Gave it away?"
BENEATHA: "He made an investment! With a man even Travis wouldn't have trusted with his most worn-out marbles."
ASAGAI: "And it's gone?"
BENEATHA: "Gone!"
ASAGAI: "I'm very sorry... And you, now?"
BENEATHA: "Me? ...Me? ...Me, I'm nothing... Me. When I was very small... we used to take our sleds out in the wintertime and the only hills we had were the ice-covered stone steps of some houses down the street. And we used to fill them in with snow and make them smooth and slide down them all day... and it was very dangerous, you know... far too steep... and sure enough one day a kid named Rufus came down too fast and hit the sidewalk and we saw his face just split open right there in front of us... And I remember standing there looking at his bloody open face thinking that was the end of Rufus. But the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital and they fixed the broken bones and they sewed it all up... and the next time I saw Rufus he just had a little line down the middle of his face... I never got over that..."
ASAGAI: "What?"
BENEATHA: "That that was what one person could do for another, fix him up--sew up the problem, make him all right again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world... I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know--and make them whole again. This was truly being God."
ASAGAI: "You wanted to be God?"
BENEATHA: "No--I wanted to cure. It used to be so important to me. I wanted to cure. It used to matter. I used to care. I mean about people and how their bodies hurt..."
ASAGAI: "And you've stopped caring?"
BENEATHA: "Yes--I think so."
ASAGAI: "Why?"
BENEATHA: "Because it doesn't seem deep enough, close enough to what ails mankind! It was a child's way of seeing things--or an idealist's."
ASAGAI: "Children see things very well sometimes--and idealists even better."
BENEATHA: "I know that's what you think. Because you are still where I left off. You with all your talk and dreams about Africa! You still think you can patch up the world. Cure the Great Sore of Colonialism--with the Penicillin of Independence--!
ASAGAI: "Yes!"
BENEATHA: "Independence and then what? What about all the crooks and thieves and just plain idiots who will come into power and steal and plunder the same as before--only now they will be black and do it in the name of new Independence--WHAT ABOUT THEM?!"
ASAGAI: "That will be the problem for another time. First we must get there."
BENEATHA: "And where does it end?"
ASAGAI: "End? Who even spoke of an end? To life? To living?"
BENEATHA: "An end to misery! To stupidity! Don't you see there isn't any real progress, Asagai, there is only one large circle that we march in, around and around, each of us with our own little picture in front of us--our own little mirage that we think is the future."
ASAGAI: "That is the mistake."
BENEATHA: "What?"
ASAGAI: "What you just said--about the circle. It isn't a circle--it is simply a long line--as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end--we also cannot see how it changes. And it is very odd but those who see the changes--who dream, who will not give up--are called idealists... and those who see only the circle--we call them the 'realists'!"
BENEATHA: "Asagai, while I was sleeping in that bed in there, people went out and took the future right out of my hands! And nobody asked me, nobody consulted me--they just went out and changed my life!"
ASAGAI: "Was it your money?"
BENEATHA: "What?"
ASAGAI: "Was it your money he gave away?"
BENEATHA: "It belonged to all of us."
ASAGAI: "But did you earn it? Would you have had it at all if your father had not died?"
BENEATHA: "No."
ASAGAI: "Then isn't there something wrong in a house--in a world--where all dreams, good or bad, must depend on the death of a man? I never thought to see you like this, Alaiyo! You! Your brother made a mistake and you are grateful to him so that now you can give up the ailing human race on account of it! You talk about what good is struggle, what good is anything! Where are we all going and why are we bothering?"
BENEATHA: "AND YOU CANNOT ANSWER IT!"
ASAGAI: "I LIVE THE ANSWER! In my village at home it is the exceptional man who can even read a newspaper… or who ever sees a book at all. I will go home and much of what I will have to say will seem strange to the people of my village. But I will teach and work and things will happen, slowly and swiftly. At times it will seem that nothing changes at all... and then again the sudden dramatic events which make history leap into the future. And then quiet again. Retrogression even. Guns, murder, revolution. And I even will have moments when I wonder if the quiet was not better than all that death and hatred. But I will look about my village at the illiteracy and disease and ignorance and I will not wonder long. And perhaps... perhaps I will be a great man... I mean perhaps I will hold on to the substance of truth and find my way always with the right course... and perhaps for it I will be butchered in my bed some night by the servant of empire..."
BENEATHA: "The martyr!"
ASAGAI: "...or perhaps I shall live to be a very old man, respected and esteemed in my new nation... And perhaps I shall hold office and this is what I'm trying to tell you, Alaiyo: perhaps the things I believe now for my country will be wrong and outmoded, and I will not understand and do terrible things to have things my way or merely to keep my power. Don't you see that there will be young men and women--not British soldiers then, but my own black countrymen--to step out of the shadows some evening and slit my then useless throat? Don't you see they have always been there... that they always will be. And that such a thing as my own death will be an advance? They who might kill me even... actually replenish all that I was."
ASAGAI: "Who gave the money away?"
BENEATHA: "The insurance money. My brother gave it away."
ASAGAI: "Gave it away?"
BENEATHA: "He made an investment! With a man even Travis wouldn't have trusted with his most worn-out marbles."
ASAGAI: "And it's gone?"
BENEATHA: "Gone!"
ASAGAI: "I'm very sorry... And you, now?"
BENEATHA: "Me? ...Me? ...Me, I'm nothing... Me. When I was very small... we used to take our sleds out in the wintertime and the only hills we had were the ice-covered stone steps of some houses down the street. And we used to fill them in with snow and make them smooth and slide down them all day... and it was very dangerous, you know... far too steep... and sure enough one day a kid named Rufus came down too fast and hit the sidewalk and we saw his face just split open right there in front of us... And I remember standing there looking at his bloody open face thinking that was the end of Rufus. But the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital and they fixed the broken bones and they sewed it all up... and the next time I saw Rufus he just had a little line down the middle of his face... I never got over that..."
ASAGAI: "What?"
BENEATHA: "That that was what one person could do for another, fix him up--sew up the problem, make him all right again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world... I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know--and make them whole again. This was truly being God."
ASAGAI: "You wanted to be God?"
BENEATHA: "No--I wanted to cure. It used to be so important to me. I wanted to cure. It used to matter. I used to care. I mean about people and how their bodies hurt..."
ASAGAI: "And you've stopped caring?"
BENEATHA: "Yes--I think so."
ASAGAI: "Why?"
BENEATHA: "Because it doesn't seem deep enough, close enough to what ails mankind! It was a child's way of seeing things--or an idealist's."
ASAGAI: "Children see things very well sometimes--and idealists even better."
BENEATHA: "I know that's what you think. Because you are still where I left off. You with all your talk and dreams about Africa! You still think you can patch up the world. Cure the Great Sore of Colonialism--with the Penicillin of Independence--!
ASAGAI: "Yes!"
BENEATHA: "Independence and then what? What about all the crooks and thieves and just plain idiots who will come into power and steal and plunder the same as before--only now they will be black and do it in the name of new Independence--WHAT ABOUT THEM?!"
ASAGAI: "That will be the problem for another time. First we must get there."
BENEATHA: "And where does it end?"
ASAGAI: "End? Who even spoke of an end? To life? To living?"
BENEATHA: "An end to misery! To stupidity! Don't you see there isn't any real progress, Asagai, there is only one large circle that we march in, around and around, each of us with our own little picture in front of us--our own little mirage that we think is the future."
ASAGAI: "That is the mistake."
BENEATHA: "What?"
ASAGAI: "What you just said--about the circle. It isn't a circle--it is simply a long line--as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end--we also cannot see how it changes. And it is very odd but those who see the changes--who dream, who will not give up--are called idealists... and those who see only the circle--we call them the 'realists'!"
BENEATHA: "Asagai, while I was sleeping in that bed in there, people went out and took the future right out of my hands! And nobody asked me, nobody consulted me--they just went out and changed my life!"
ASAGAI: "Was it your money?"
BENEATHA: "What?"
ASAGAI: "Was it your money he gave away?"
BENEATHA: "It belonged to all of us."
ASAGAI: "But did you earn it? Would you have had it at all if your father had not died?"
BENEATHA: "No."
ASAGAI: "Then isn't there something wrong in a house--in a world--where all dreams, good or bad, must depend on the death of a man? I never thought to see you like this, Alaiyo! You! Your brother made a mistake and you are grateful to him so that now you can give up the ailing human race on account of it! You talk about what good is struggle, what good is anything! Where are we all going and why are we bothering?"
BENEATHA: "AND YOU CANNOT ANSWER IT!"
ASAGAI: "I LIVE THE ANSWER! In my village at home it is the exceptional man who can even read a newspaper… or who ever sees a book at all. I will go home and much of what I will have to say will seem strange to the people of my village. But I will teach and work and things will happen, slowly and swiftly. At times it will seem that nothing changes at all... and then again the sudden dramatic events which make history leap into the future. And then quiet again. Retrogression even. Guns, murder, revolution. And I even will have moments when I wonder if the quiet was not better than all that death and hatred. But I will look about my village at the illiteracy and disease and ignorance and I will not wonder long. And perhaps... perhaps I will be a great man... I mean perhaps I will hold on to the substance of truth and find my way always with the right course... and perhaps for it I will be butchered in my bed some night by the servant of empire..."
BENEATHA: "The martyr!"
ASAGAI: "...or perhaps I shall live to be a very old man, respected and esteemed in my new nation... And perhaps I shall hold office and this is what I'm trying to tell you, Alaiyo: perhaps the things I believe now for my country will be wrong and outmoded, and I will not understand and do terrible things to have things my way or merely to keep my power. Don't you see that there will be young men and women--not British soldiers then, but my own black countrymen--to step out of the shadows some evening and slit my then useless throat? Don't you see they have always been there... that they always will be. And that such a thing as my own death will be an advance? They who might kill me even... actually replenish all that I was."