Faggotty-Looking White Shoes (6)

RUTH: You get to New York a lot?

GEORGE (offhand): Few times a year.

RUTH: Oh-that’s nice. I’ve never been to New York. (WALTER enters. We feel he has relieved himself, but the edge of unreality is still with him.)

WALTER: New York ain’t got nothing Chicago ain’t. Just a bunch of hustling people all squeezed up together- being “Eastern.” (He turns his face into a screw of displeasure.)

GEORGE: Oh - you’ve been?

WALTER: Plenty of times.

RUTH (shocked at the lie): Plenty! (pause) What we got to drink in this house? Why don’t you offer this man some refreshment. (to GEORGE) They don’t know how to entertain people in this house, man.

GEORGE: Thank you- I don’t really care for anything.

WALTER (feeling his head; sobriety coming): Where’s Mama?

RUTH: She ain’t come back yet.

WALTER (looking MURCHISON over from head to toe, scrutinizing sweater over soft velvet shirt and tie, and soft slacks, finished off with white buckskin shoes): Why all you college boys wear them faggotty-looking white shoes?

RUTH: Walter Lee!

GEORGE MURCHISON ignores the remark.

WALTER (to RUTH): Well, they look crazy as hell - white shoes, cold as it is.

RUTH (crushed): You have to excuse him-

WALTER: No he don’t! Excuse me for what? What you always excusing me for! I’ll excuse myself when I needs to be excused! (a pause) They look as funny as them black knee socks Beneatha wears out of here all the time.

RUTH: It’s the college style, Walter.

WALTER: Style, hell. She looks like she got burnt legs or something!

RUTH: Oh, Walter -

WALTER (an irritable mimic): Oh, Walter! Oh, Walter! (to MURCHISON) How’s your old man making out? I understand you all going to buy that big hotel on the Drive? (He finds a beer in the refrigerator, wanders over to MURCHISON, sipping and wiping his lips with the back of his hand, and straddling a chair backwards to talk to the other man.) Shrewd move. Your old man is all right, man. (tapping his head and half winking for emphasis) I mean he knows how to operate. I mean he thinks big, you know what I mean, I mean for a home, you know? But I think he’s kind of running out of ideas now. I’d like to talk to him. Listen, man, I got some plans that could turn this city upside down. I mean think like he does. Big. Invest big, gamble big, hell, lose big if you have to, you know what I mean. It’s hard to find a man on this whole Southside who understands my kind of thinking-you dig? (He scrutinizes MURCHISON again, drinks his beer, squints his eyes and leans in close, confidential, man to man.) Me and you ought ti sit down and talk sometimes, man. Man, I got me some ideas . . .

In Beneatha and George’s conversation, Hansberry reveals two sets of values regarding education. Beneatha believes in education as a means to understanding and self-fulfillment, while George sees education as a means to get a good job. The difference in their views about education displays a deeper divergence between the two, one of idealism versus pragmatism.