Feelings and Emotions in The Piano Lesson by August Wilson

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Recommended: published analysis of the piano lesson by august wilson

One of the main characters that is mentioned in the play The Piano Lesson by August Wilson is a woman named Berniece Charles. She has been a widow for three years and she has a daughter named Maretha Charles. Berniece works on her own to take care of her small family in the town of Pittsburgh. The main discussion in the play is the argument over the families’ piano with her brother, Boy Willie Charles. Berniece shows readers her different attitudes throughout the play about how her family piano makes her feel in a negative way, how it makes her feel in a positive way, and what the piano really means to her on a personal level.
In an article by David M. Galens, he describes Berniece’s life as it is full of mixed feelings and emotions. One of the things that gave Berniece assorted emotions was her brother trying to sell the piano out of the family. “She is fiercely protective of it [the piano] and refuses to allow Boy Willie to sell it. The piano is the Charles’ family totem: it visibly records the lost lives of Berniece and Boy Willie’s ancestors, and it is the only tangible link remaining between past and present” (Galens).
Other than having personal family attachments to the piano, it also has some of her childhood memories connected to it. Berniece grew up being taught to play the piano by Miss Eula, her piano teacher, because her mother wanted her too, but later in life she claims “she only played it while her widowed mother was alive out of respect. After her mother’s death, she ceased to play it because she was bitter about the pain it had brought the family” (Galens). She refuses to play the piano because she claims it will wake the family spirits and she does not want to do that. Even though Berniece quit playing the pi...

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...rk: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001. 839-860. Scribner Writers on GVRL. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.
Kubitschek, Missy D. “August Wilson’s Gender Lessons.” May All Your Fences Have Gates:
Essays on the Drama of August Wilson. Ed. Alan Nadel. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994. 183-199. Print.
Morales, Michael. “Ghosts on the Piano.” May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the
Drama of August Wilson. Ed. Alan Nadel. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994.
105-115. Print.
"Notes from the Past." August Wilson. Peter Wolfe. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
93-109. Twayne's United States Authors Series 712. Twayne's Authors on GVRL.
Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
"The Piano Lesson." Drama for Students. Ed. David M. Galens. Vol. 7. Detroit: Gale, 2000.
243-262. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.
Wilson, August. The Piano Lesson. New York: 1990. 1-108. Print.

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