Dutchman

“I was. But only after I’d turned around and saw you staring through that window down in the vicinity of my ass and legs.”

Lula says this to Clay when they first meet, after she accuses him of staring at her through the window. The mention of her “ass and legs” immediately sexualizes Lula and establishes their relationship as a sexual/seduction-based one, which it is until the play takes its final turn.

“You look like you live in New Jersey with your parents and are trying to grow a beard. That’s what. You look like you’ve been reading Chinese poetry and drinking lukewarm sugarless tea. […] You look like death eating a soda cracker.”

Lula speaks to Clay as if she knows him—but insists she simply can tell who he is by looking at him. Lula’s assessment of Clay, which he suggests is spot-on, establishes his character: a “wannabe intellectual” who is still young and attempting to be more mature than he truly is. Her phrase “death eating a soda cracker” also suggests that he is, to her, “boring” and plain, a sharp contrast to Lula’s clearly vibrant persona.

“I lie a lot. [Smiling] It helps me control the world.

Lula’s comment immediately establishes her as a mysterious character who cannot be trusted; the details of her true life are never revealed. Her desire to “control the world” foreshadows her increasing attempt to control Clay and force him to shed his “white” persona, as well as her personal crusade to murder Clay—and, presumably, other similar African-American men.

“Lula: […] You want this?

Clay: Sure.

Lula: Eating apples is always the first step. […] Would you like to get involved with me, Mister Man?”

Lula’s flirty exchange with Clay takes place as she offers him an apple. It alludes to the story of Adam and Eve, as Lula is a “temptress” whose gift will ultimately bring about Clay’s downfall.

“I told you I didn’t know anything about you…you’re a well-known type. […] Or at least I know the type very well.”

Lula says this to Clay as he keeps imploring why she knows so much about him and his life. At this time in the play, it appears that Lula may be skilled at reading people. However, by the end of the play, it becomes clear that she “knows [this] type very well” because she habitually preys on educated young black men, like Clay, as a way to punish them for attempting to rise above their racial station.

“What’ve you got that jacket and tie on in all this heat for? And why’re you wearing a jacket and tie like that? Did your people ever burn witches or start revolutions over the price of tea? Boy, those narrow-shoulder clothes come from a tradition you ought to feel oppressed by. A three-button suit. What right do you have to be wearing a three-button suit? Your grandfather was a slave, he didn’t go to Harvard.”

Lula attacks Clay for defying black stereotypes. Her suggestion of how Clay “ought to feel oppressed” by white culture and should not be wearing a suit suggests how Lula “polices” Clay’s behavior as a black man. It emphasizes how Clay’s decision to wear a suit symbolizes breaking free from black stereotypes. The quote also emphasizes Lula’s racism, as she assumes his grandfather was a slave and was not well-educated.

“Clay: Well, in college I thought I was Baudelaire. But I’ve slowed down since.

Lula: I bet you never once thought you were a black nigger.”

Clay and Lula discuss Clay’s time in college. Clay’s assertion that he thought he was Baudelaire, a French poet, suggests both his intellectualism and interest in poetry, which he later mentions during his long speech. Lula’s assertion that Clay “never once thought you were a black nigger” establishes her overt racism. It also hints at the anger she feels toward Clay because he does not seem to embrace his “blackness” by following stereotypes. He goes along with her comment this time, but resists her racial remarks toward the end of the play.

“Lula: May the people accept you as a ghost of the future. And love you, that you might not kill them when you can.

Clay: What?

Lula: You’re a murderer, Clay, and you know it. [Her voice darkening with significance] You know goddamn well what I mean. […] We’ll pretend the people cannot see you. That is, the citizens. And that you are free of your own history. And I am free of my history. We’ll pretend that we are both anonymous beauties smashing along through the city’s entrails.”

This exchange, which closes out the first scene, hints at the escalation that will occur in the second, as Lula once again refers to Clay as attempting to defy his own blackness, as she says he is pretending to be “free of his own history” and is a “ghost of the future.” That presumably refers to a future where black and white people are not segregated as they were during the 1960s.

“I mean, we’ll look in all the shopwindows, and make fun of the queers. Maybe we’ll meet a Jewish Buddhist and flatten his conceits over some very pretentious coffee.”

Lula says this to Clay as the two fantasize about their evening together. Besides the quote’s depiction of racism against African-Americans, it also suggests other forms of bigotry, as Lula alludes to her prejudice against LGBTQ New Yorkers. Her comments about “flattening” the beliefs of a Jewish Buddhist are one of a number of references in the text that could be construed as anti-Semitic.

“Lula: Wouldn’t live anywhere else. Reminds me specifically of my novel form of insanity.

Clay: Up the tenement stairs.

Lula: And with my apple-eating hand I push open the door and lead you, my tender big-eyed prey, into my […] God, what can I call it…into my hovel.”

Lula’s living situation—and her attribution of living in a slum-like tenement in close quarters to her “novel form of insanity”—offers a rare insight into the mysterious character’s life. Her referral to her “apple-eating hand” and Clay as her “big-eyed prey” continues the idea of Lula as an Eve-like temptress who preys on Clay—and foreshadows that she will ultimately destroy him.

“About what? About your manhood, what do you think? What do you think we’ve been talking about all this time?”

Lula says this to Clay as they discuss what they’ll do once they arrive at her apartment. This quote reinforces the piece’s theme of black male identity, which, to her, is clearly the entire point of their exchange.

“Lula: It’s the only kind of thing you will lie about. Especially if you think it’ll keep me alive.

Clay: Keep you alive? I don’t understand.

Lula: Don’t understand? Well, don’t look at me. It’s the path I take, that’s all. Where both feet take me when I set them down. One in front of the other.

Clay: Morbid. Morbid. You sure you’re not an actress? All that self-aggrandizement.”

Clay and Lula have this exchange after she tells him that he could tell her he loves her. This quote not only shows Lula’s dramatic personality, but suggests an obsession with death and killing that foreshadows the piece’s destructive ending.

“All stories are whole stories. All of ‘em. Our whole story…nothing but change. How could things go on like that forever? Huh? [Slaps him on the shoulder, begins finding things in her bag, taking them out and throwing them over her shoulder into the aisle] Except I do go on as I do. Apples and long walks with deathless intelligent lovers. But you mix it up. Look out the window, all the time. Turning pages. Change change change. Till, shit, I don’t know you. Wouldn’t, for that matter. You’re too serious. I bet you’re even too serious to be psychoanalyzed.”

Lula says this to Clay as he asks her to tell him the “whole story” of their impending evening. Lula’s reference to “go[ing] on as I do” seemingly connects to the play’s title, as Lula, like the Flying Dutchman, keeps going on without ever changing her ways. It also foreshadows Lula’s dark pattern of preying on young black men, though here, as they flirt, it is presented in a more harmless way.

“Lula: Do they frighten you?

Clay: Frighten me? Why should they frighten me?

Lula: ‘Cause you’re an escaped nigger.

Clay: Yeah?

Lula: ‘Cause you crawled through the wire and made tracks to my side.”

Lula and Clay notice the other passengers on the subway with them. The comment makes explicit Lula’s racism and inability to see Clay as having “evolved” past his cultural heritage. She alludes to slavery in referring to Clay as an “escaped nigger” and likens his attempt to assimilate into white culture to escaping from a plantation.

“You must be Jewish. All you can think about is wire. Plantations didn’t have any wire. Plantations were big open whitewashed places like heaven, and everybody on ‘em was grooved to be there. Just strummin’ and hummin’ all day. […] And that’s how the blues was born.”

Clay responds to Lula’s suggestion that he “escaped” from a plantation by “crawl[ing] through the wire.” His comment about the origins of the blues foreshadows the themes of his long speech, in which he suggests that African-Americans use art as a way to channel their rage. His assertion that Lula “must be Jewish” is one of several references to Judaism in the text that could be construed as anti-Semitic.

“And that’s how the blues was born. Yes. Come on, Clay. Let’s do the nasty. Rub bellies. Rub bellies.”

Lula says this to Clay as she starts dancing and singing, an escalation that ultimately leads to their confrontation and Clay’s speech. It shows how Lula desires a sexual relationship with Clay, while suggesting again how Lula wants Clay to shake off the “white” persona he’s adopted and return to something more “primal” and “black.” Her phrase “rub bellies” is later referenced by Clay in his speech as something that Lula cannot understand as a white person.

“Clay! You middle-class black bastard. Forget your social-working mother for a few seconds and let’s knock stomachs. Clay, you liver-lipped white man. You would-be Christian. You ain’t no nigger, you’re just a dirty white man. Get up, Clay. Dance with me, Clay.”

Lula implores Clay to dance with her. It explicitly shows how Lula believes that Clay is attempting to be “white” through his intellectual, suited-up persona, and thus is betraying his blackness, which she intrinsically associates with not being “middle class.”

“Be cool. Be cool. That’s all you know…shaking that wildroot cream-oil on your knotty head, jackets buttoning up to your chin, so full of white man’s words. Christ. God. Get up and scream at these people. Like scream meaningless shit in these hopeless faces. […] Clay, you got to break out. Don’t sit there dying the way they want you to die.”

Lula believes that Clay must show his black rage by “scream[ing]” at people and “break[ing] out.” She believes he should resist white assimilation and reflect black stereotypes.

“Screw yourself, Uncle Tom. Thomas Woolly-head. […] [Some of the other riders are laughing now. A drunk gets up and joins Lula in her dance, singing, as best he can, her ‘song.’]”

Lula says this to Clay as she continues to racially taunt him. The other passengers on the train reflect the racism in society at large, as they go along with Lula and laugh at her racist comments, instead of defending Clay as Lula verbally assaults him.

“You’re afraid of white people. And your father was. Uncle Tom Big Lip!”

Lula’s suggestion that Clay is “afraid of” white people goes along with her continual assertions that he should not try and assimilate into white culture, but should instead stick to black cultural stereotypes—now, hinting that by not doing so, he is being subservient to white people. This appears to be the final straw for Clay, who then uses his speech to say that he is not afraid of white people, but instead “could murder” (33) them.

“Shit, you don’t have any sense, Lula, nor feelings either. I could murder you now. […] And all these weak-faced ofays squatting around here, staring over their papers at me. […] That man there…I could rip that Times right out of his hand, as skinny and middle-classed as I am […] It takes no great effort: For what? To kill you soft idiots? You don’t understand anything but luxury.”

This quote marks the climax of the play. Clay has so far remained nonconfrontational in response to Lula’s racial taunting. When he’s finally had enough, his verbal revolt threatens violence against Lula and the other white people on the train. Clay’s behavior in both scenes could represent the nonviolent and violent forms of self-defense during the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil War abolished slavery, but racial prejudice, injustice, and violence (often murderous) against African-Americans continued for decades until it could no longer be tolerated, and the Civil Rights Movement was born. African-Americans stood up, like Clay, and fought for black equality. Clay’s allusion to luxury and ignorance is directed at Lula and the white people on the train, suggesting their inability to understand Clay’s struggles as a black man.

“If I’m a middle-class fake white man…let me be. And let me be in the way I want. […] You don’t know anything except what’s there for you to see. An act. Lies. Device. Not the pure heart, the pumping black heart. You don’t ever know that. And I sit here, in this buttoned-up suit, to keep myself from cutting all your throats. I mean wantonly. […] Old bald-headed four-eyed ofays popping their fingers…and don’t know yet what they’re doing. They say, ‘I love Bessie Smith.’ And don’t even understand that Bessie Smith is saying, ‘Kiss my ass, kiss my black unruly ass.’ Before love, suffering, desire, anything you can explain, she’s saying, and very plainly, ‘Kiss my black ass.’ And if you don’t know that, it’s you that’s doing the kissing. […]

“Bird would’ve played not a note of music if he just walked up to East Sixty-seventh street and killed the first ten white people he saw. Not a note! And I’m the great would-be poet. […] Just let me bleed you, you loud whore, and one poem vanished. A whole people of neurotics, struggling to keep from being sane. And the only thing that would cure the neurosis would be your murder. Simple as that. I mean if I murdered you, then other white people would begin to understand me. You understand? No. I guess not. If Bessie Smith had killed some white people she wouldn’t have needed that music. She could have talked very straight and plain about the world. […] Crazy niggers turning their backs on sanity. When all it needs is that simple act. Murder. Just murder! Would make us all sane. […]

“But who needs it? I’d rather be a fool. Insane. Safe with my words, and no deaths, and clean, hard thoughts, urging me to new conquests. […] But listen, though, one more thing. […] Tell [your father] not to preach so much rationalism and cold logic to these niggers […] or maybe they’ll begin to listen. And then, maybe you’ll find they actually do understand exactly what you are talking about […] And on that day, as sure as shit, when you really believe you can ‘accept’ them into your fold […] they’ll murder you. They’ll murder you, and have very rational explanations.”

Clay delivers this long speech (only excerpts of which are copied here) in response to Lula’s continual taunting. Clay explicitly rejects Lula’s racist view of him and rages against the racial oppression he faces, marking a sharp change from his previous behavior. His speech, marking the first substantial vocalization about blackness from a non-white perspective, inspires Lula to murder him.

“Clay: Sorry, baby, I don’t think we could make it. [As he is bending over her, the girl brings up a small knife and plunges it into Clay’s chest. Twice. He slumps across her knees, his mouth working stupidly.]

Lula: Sorry is right. [Turning to the others in the car who have already gotten up from their seats] Sorry is the rightest thing you’ve said. Get this man off me! Hurry, now! [The others come and drag Clay’s body down the aisle] Open the door and throw his body out. [They throw him off] And all of you get off at the next stop.”

Clay’s murder is a climactic event in the play, illustrating how white Americans (here represented through Lula) destroy African-Americans’ lives, even after first showing kindness and flirting with treating African-Americans equally. The passengers’ willingness to go along with Lula and become complicit in her act symbolizes the broader societal willingness to accept racism, particularly during the 1960s when this play first debuted.