Why does asagai study in america

JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. Asagai really works the Nigerian thing to get ahead with Beneatha. Knowing that Beneatha has a longing for identity and roots, he tells her all about Africa and gives her African records and a robe. If Asagai had his way, she'd be a straight-up African woman, instead of an African-American one.

He even goes so far as to suggest her straightened hair is a sign that she is "assimilated" into white American culture. He volunteers to assist in the move to Clybourne Park and offers much-needed consolation and good advice to Beneatha when she is at her lowest.

He counsels Beneatha spiritually and emotionally, helping her to get back "on track" as she rails against her brother's foolishness in having lost the money. Asagai's philosophy runs counter to the Western perception of success at any cost. He questions, for example, the satisfaction of receiving money through misfortune while calling it "success. Being a true African, Asagai is grounded in his "Africaness" while Beneatha is trying, almost too hard, to connect with an African past that she knows so little of.

It is Beneatha and not Asagai who is constantly singing the praises of Africa. White — black — in this you are all the same. And the same speech, too! You all talk about it too much! Act I, scene ii. Asagai and Beneatha are discussing the idea of freedom.

In this way, Asagai argues, both Black and white American women are the same: Neither are really free. Asagai, a symbol of Black identity in the play, argues that true freedom for Black people is not attained through assimilation, but from returning to Africa.

Where are all going and why are we bothering? Beneatha prides herself on being independent. Asagai criticizes her for being both too independent by not wanting to marry and too dependent by not wanting to leave America. When she realizes this dependence, she gains a new perspective on her dream and a new energy to attain it in her own way. This realization also brings her closer to Walter.