In referring to thirty
pieces of
silver,suggests that Lindner's offer to buy the family's new house from them is
a
bribe or "ransom" akin to the one that Judas accepted as payment for
betraying Jesus
Christ to the Romans.
At this point in
the play (Act II: iii), Mama has
purchased a house in a "white
neighborhood."
" Younger uses her
insurance money to buy a house. She has bought it, however, in
a segregated
area, and though she is willing to face that battle when it comes, the
ominous
appearance of Lindner, who wants to buy out the Youngers to avoid
their moving it to Clybourne
Park, threatens future difficulties" .
Residents of the Clybourne Park neighborhood
have collectively decided to make an offer
to the Younger family.
Lindner is sent to deliver the offer from his
"people" and to deal
with the Younger family, which he repeatedly addresses through
the play's
last acts as "you people," objectifying the family in this way and
underscoring the categorical, impersonal, race-oriented point of view that he and his
offer
represent.
"Our association is
prepared, through
the collective effort of our people, to buy the house from
you at a financial gain to your
family."
Throughout this scene, Lindner defines his
community as being
hard-working and decent and relatively understanding. When he finally
suggests that these qualities have led that community to make a "generous" offer
that
will collectively serve to maintain racial barriers, he does not realize
either theof his
statement or the fact that the neighborhood's decision
expressly mimics the systematic racism
that the family is struggling
against.
His neighborhood group seeks to unify
against
change in racial dynamics in Clybourne Park. The racism inherent in this point is
lost
on Lindner, who feels that somehow his hard-working community should not
logically or
effectively include other hard-working families like the
Youngers. The fact that this
discriminatory action is intended to be
undertaken via purely financial means underscores the
troublesome economic
reality of a society that would keep one demographic down or excluded by
utilizing its major advantage - wealth (and access to wealth).
Lindner's
proposed action functionally betrays both the
neighborhood's avowed virtues (by repeating racist
exclusion-ism) and the
Younger family's moral sensibilities (as each family member strives to
find a
way to live with dignity and hope in a social world that too often works to deny
them
both dignity and hope).
Thus, when Beneatha responds
to the proposed buy-out
with the bitterly sarcastic line, "Thirty pieces and
not a coin less!" she is
recognizing the ironies of the situation that
Lindner cannot or will not see.
A further irony of this
scene comes in the immediate solidarity the family takes on in
the face of
Lindner's offensive offer. Whereand Beneatha had been opposed to the idea of
moving
into a white neighborhood and felt at odds with one another as well,
the brother and sister
unite in their family pride after Lindner comes and
attempts to insult that pride.
We can note that this
family pride is exactly what is at stake through much of the play
and is
precisely the object that embattles Lena Younger and her children. She sees reason to
be
proud, despite hardship and limitations. They see a need for worldly
recognition, a shift in
material circumstances, or even a new foundation of
identity as necessary for a new basis for
family pride.
When Lindner suggests that they betray their mother and her
efforts
to overturn (or, more simply, to ignore) racial boundaries, the family pride that
Lena
had argued for suddenly and reflexively comes to the fore for Beneatha
and Walter.
While this moment of family pride proves to
be somewhat short-lived, it makes a return
in the play's- a fact that renders
the scene of Lindner's offer as a salient thematic moment in
the play,
demonstrating the nature of one of the thematic conflicts in the
narrative.
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