Shoes Symbol Analysis

Shoes symbolize the state of perpetual inaction that plagues Davies and exemplify the deeply contradictory and self-defeating qualities that keep him from taking any steps forward in his life. Davies simultaneously needs and rejects the help that others try to give him. For example, in Act I, Davies insists that he needs shoes to go to Sidcup to retrieve his identification papers, yet every time Aston offers Davies shoes, Davies rejects them on the grounds that they are too small, too uncomfortable, or too aesthetically displeasing. Davies then goes on to use his supposed lack of adequate shoes as an excuse to remain in Aston’s home. Like Mick and Aston, Davies has ambitions, yet he repeatedly commits self-defeating acts that stand in the way of reaching them. Davies’s attitude toward the shoes Aston offers him is indicative of his attitude toward life: that there will always be something—whether it be real or imagined—that stands in the way of his beginning to move forward. Whether it be the wrong color shoelaces, a pair of shoes with too-pointy toes, or the “foreigners” who supposedly take all the seats at the café, Davies repeatedly finds some excuse to continue in a perpetual state of inaction and malaise.