Throughout all genres of literature, authors are often trying to relay a message that has much more meaning than the literal words of the texts. August Wilson uses the genre of plays to allow his message to reach a large audience. In August Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson he uses symbols, characters, and diction to show the significance of black culture and history. August Wilson has always made it clear through interviews and his works the significance behind his plays. “Wilson 's task, one shared by many black American writers, is a simultaneously reactive/reconstructive engagement with the representation of blacks and the representation of history by the dominant culture” (Morales 105). His main goal is to portray and promote black culture …show more content…
Wilson uses both the history behind the piano and the carvings as the single item that the plot revolves around. In fact, “It is around this piano that questions of the past 's impact on the present are contested” (Elam Jr. 362). One critic even claims that, “Since it represents the ancestors of the black family and evokes their white masters, too, the piano is the single most important prop on stage” (Bloom 94). The controversy of the play circles around the piano. Berniece owns the piano and lives in Pittsburgh. Her brother, Boy Willie, comes to visit from Mississippi, and he wants to sell the piano so that he can purchase land back in the South. Berniece refuses to sell it, but the audience does not know why at first. It is later revealed through the sibling’s Uncle Doaker’s storytelling why it is so valuable to the family. He shares how the piano was originally owned by a white family, the Sutters, during slavery time. After the Charles family had been carved into the piano, Berniece and Boy Willie’s father stole the piano away from the Sutters and paid a significant price for doing so. "Now that 's how all that got started and that why we say Berniece ain 't gonna sell that piano. 'Cause her daddy died over it” (Wilson 44). The history of the piano symbolizes the plight and struggles the Charles family and all blacks faced through …show more content…
“Significantly in Piano Lesson, as in his other works, Wilson interpolates nontraditional elements such as African spirituality, African music, and ghosts into the fabric of this seemingly realistic narrative” (Elam Jr. 363). Wilson is able to use a non-realistic element like ghosts in his realistic and thoughtful play as another way of representing black culture. The ghost of Sutter is another major source of controversy in the play. It visits the Charles home several times throughout the play, and the ghost is why Berniece will not play the piano. “I don 't play the piano 'cause I don 't want to wake them spirits. They never be walking around in this house” (Wilson 71). Boy Willie acts like he does not believe in this ghost, but the final scene involves Boy Willie fighting the ghost of Sutter. The play is not a musical, but Wilson does reserve chunks of the play for traditional black songs. Doaker often sings about his days working on the railroad. While Boy Willie is fighting the ghost in the last scene, Berniece is furiously playing on the piano and singing out to her black ancestors asking for their help. The music is used to symbolize history, hard work, and the power and determination of blacks through the
The formation of the Africana Studies Project includes Knowledge, Power, and Humanity. This insurrectionary intellectual formation examines the worlds of meaning, thought, and expression of Africans, reconstructing new meanings and possibilities for humanity. Development of African American Studies has increased awareness of the contribution of African Americans to the civilizations of the world, using its many themes and concepts, while also displaying many issues. One main issue of this, is the lack of Africana knowledge. For African American discipline to advance, its focal point must be the production and utilization of knowledge, to develop solutions to various issues in our society.
Do you ever have one of those days when you remember your parents taking away all of your baseball cards or all of your comic books because you got a bad grade in one of your classes? You feel a little depressed and your priced possession has been stolen. This event is the same as August Wilson’s, The Piano Lesson. The story is about a sibling rivalry, Boy Willie Charles against Berniece Charles, regarding an antique, family inherited piano. Boy Willie wants to sell the piano in order to buy the same Mississippi land that his family had worked as slaves. However, Berniece, who has the piano, declines Boy Willie’s request to sell the piano because it is a reminder of the history that is their family heritage. She believes that the piano is more consequential than “hard cash” Boy Willie wants. Based on this idea, one might consider that Berniece is more ethical than Boy Willie.
Should a neglected, discriminated, and misplaced black man living in the mid 1900s possessing a spectacular, yet unfulfilled talent for baseball be satisfied or miserable? The play Fences, written by August Wilson, answers this question by depicting the challenging journey of the main character, Troy Maxon. Troy, an exceptional baseball player during his youth, cannot break the color barrier and is kept from playing in the big leagues. That being his major life setback, Troy has a pessimistic view on the world. His attitude is unpleasant, but not without justification. Troy has a right to be angry, but to whom he takes out his anger on is questionable. He regularly gets fed up with his sons, Lyons and Cory, for no good reason. Troy disapproves of Lyons’ musical goals and Cory’s football ambitions to the point where the reader can notice Troy’s illogical way of releasing his displeasures. Frank Rich’s 1985 review of Fences in the New York Times argues that Troy’s constant anger is not irrational, but expected. Although Troy’s antagonism in misdirected, Rich is correct when he observes that Troy’s endless anger is warranted because Troy experiences an extremely difficult life, facing racism, jail, and poverty.
To enforce the central subject of conflict between siblings: Boy Willie and Berniece over their family piano, the 1995 film adaptation of The Piano Lesson (PL) successfully recreates two important parts of stage-play. The first occurs in Act 1, Scene 2. This scene is important because it outlines the history of the piano, as well as Berniece’s emotional attachment to the piano, and the involvement of Sutter’s ghost. Knowing the history behind the piano is essential to the viewer's comprehension of its symbolic significance. The central subject is enforced through this scene because it provides the motive of the conflict. Boy Willie sees the piano as a monetary item and a way to advance his social and economic security. That by selling the piano and buying Sutter’s land, he would be an heir to his father’s legacy. To Berniece, the piano holds an emotional and symbolic value that no amount of money could equal. She sees the life and death of her and Boy Willie’s father as well as the blood, tears and sacred spirit
In the play “The Piano Lesson”, August Wilson utilizes two main characters Boy Willie and Berniece to present the theme of gender roles and sexual politics. The reaction of the siblings toward the piano illustrates the role of a man and woman during the conflict. Throughout the entire play they argue over the piano and struggle with an underlying problem of choosing to honor their ancestors or leaving the family’s history in the past. Boy Willie wants to show respect to his ancestors by selling the piano to continue the Charles’s family legacy. He wants to buy Sutter’s land because Sutter was a white slave master who forced his ancestors to work on the land. However, Berniece wants to keep the piano and doesn’t want to use it because of fear. The disagreement between the siblings shows the play’s representation of gender differences.
The Piano Lesson written by August Wilson is a work that struggles to suggest how best African Americans can handle their heritage and how they can best put their history to use. This problem is important to the development of theme throughout the work and is fueled by the two key players of the drama: Berniece and Boy Willie. These siblings, who begin with opposing views on what to do with a precious family heirloom, although both protagonists in the drama, serve akin to foils of one another. Their similarities and differences help the audience to understand each individual more fully and to comprehend the theme that one must find balance between deserting and preserving the past in order to pursue the future, that both too greatly honoring or too greatly guarding the past can ruin opportunities in the present and the future.
The Piano Lesson by August Wilson is taking place in Pittsburg because many Blacks travelled North to escape poverty and racial judgment in the South. This rapid mass movement in history is known as The Great migration. The migration meant African Americans are leaving behind what had always been their economic and social base in America, and having to find a new one. The main characters in this play are Berniece and Boy Willie who are siblings fighting over a piano that they value in different ways. Berniece wants to have it for sentimental reasons, while Boy Willie wants it so he can sell it and buy land. The piano teaches many lessons about the effects of separation, migration, and the reunion of
August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, tells a story of a family haunted by the pain of their past and their struggle to find peace to move forward. The story begins with character Boy Willie coming up from the south visiting his sister Bernice. Boy Willie introduces the idea of selling the family’s heirloom, a piano, to raise enough money to buy the land on which his ancestors were enslaved. However, both Boy Willie and his sister Berniece own half a half of the piano and she refuses to let Boy Willie sell it. Through the use of symbolism, Wilson uses his characters, the piano and the family’s situation to provide his intended audience with the lesson of exorcising our past in order to move forward in our lives. Our past will always be a part of our lives, but it does not limit or determine where we can go, what we can do, or who we can become.
Surprisingly, this novel ends with Boy Willie and Lymon going back to Mississippi without selling the piano. Finally, Boy Willie closes by telling Berniece that if she doesn’t keep playing on the piano, he and Sutter would both be back. In saying this, Boy Willie means that if they don’t keep their inheritance close to their heart, unfavorable events could begin happening once
As Floyd is falling down on the stage, my heart is teared apart resonating with miserable life of African-American people in 1940s Pittsburgh. I have seen how people struggle with their assigned and unfair destiny and how the brutal reality smashes their dreams and humanity; I have seen that there were a group of people singing, dreaming, fighting, loving and dying in the red-brick house, which I might pass by everyday, all in this masterpiece of August Wilson. It is always difficult to reopen the grievous wound of the dark period during America history; however, the hurtfulness would be the most effective way forcing people to reflect the consequence of history.
In the play, The Piano Lesson, music played an important role. The piano in the play represented the African American history and culture. The ghost of Sutter represented the pain and trauma that had been endured throughout the generations in the Charles family. Berniece did not play the piano because she associated it with pain and the bad things that happened to her family members. She did not want to accept the things that had happened in her family’s past. She thought that she could deny everything and act like it never happened. She believed if she continued to run from everything and everybody that the pain would go away. Berniece was burdened and haunted by the ghost of Sutter until she gave in and played the piano after all of those years. After playing the piano, Berniece was no longer burdened or haunted by the past. She was free from all of the denial. She escaped the pain through the music and reflecting on the carvings on the piano, which represented her heritage. Berniece’s brother, Boy Willie, told her “Berniece, if you and Maretha don’t keep playing on that piano… ain’t no telling… me and Sutter both liable to be back” (Wilson 108). By saying that, he meant that if she did not allow her daughter to continue playing the piano and learning about her culture that she would end up going through the same things that Berniece had gone through. Music has a huge impact on the African American culture in several ways and many things about the past can be learned through it.
August Wilson’s play Fences brings an introspective view of the world and of Troy Maxson’s family and friends. The title Fences displays many revelations on what the meaning and significance of the impending building of the fence in the Maxson yard represents. Wilson shows how the family and friends of Troy survive in a day to day scenario through good times and bad. Wilson utilizes his main characters as the interpreters of Fences, both literally and figuratively. Racism, confinement, and protection show what Wilson was conveying when he chose the title Fences.
Racism is everywhere; it is all around us and at most times it resides within us. Racism basically refers to the characterization of people (ethnicity based) with certain distinct traits. It is a tool with which people use to distinguish themselves between each other, where some use it to purposely inflict verbal, physical or mental attacks on others while some use it to simply distinguish or differentiate from one another. It all depends on the context in which it is used. The play Fences by August Wilson, takes place during the late 1950’s through to 1965, a period of time when the fights against segregation are barely blossoming results. The main protagonist, Troy Maxson is an African American who works in the sanitation department; he is also a responsible man whose thwarted dreams make him prone to believing in self-created illusions. Wilson's most apparent intention in the play ‘Fences’, is to show how racial segregation creates social and economic gaps between African Americans and whites. Racism play a very influential role in Troy’s but more importantly it has been the force behind his actions that has seen him make biased and judgmental decisions for himself and his family. Lessons from the play intend to shed light on how racism can affect the mental and physical lives of Troy Maxson and his family.
In The Piano Lesson each central character learns a lesson. August Wilson uses plenty of symbolism throughout his play, the strongest symbol being the piano itself, representing the family's history, their long struggle, and their burden of their race. Throughout the play, the conflict revolves around the piano, and Berniece and Boy Willie's contrasting views about its significance and about what should be done with it. Berniece is ashamed and cannot let go of the past, or the piano, and Boy Willie wants to move his life forward, and use the piano to do so. Wilson portrays the 'lesson' of the piano as accepting and respecting one's past and moving on with one's life gracefully, through Berniece and Boy Willies contrasting actions and the play's climactic resolution.
“Hey Berniece… if you and Maretha don’t keep playing on that piano… ain’t no telling… me and Sutter both liable to be back [Boy Willie].” (Wilson 108). Boy Willie in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson finally realizes the importance of the piano and decides that he shouldn’t sell the piano. Berniece and Boy Willie engaged in a lot of disputes in the play. Boy Willie wanted to sell the piano to gain success by buying the land where his ancestors were enslaved, whereas Berniece wanted to keep the piano to continue to inherit the piano in memory of the blood that stained the wood. She leaves the piano untouched, and keeps its history from her daughter. In The Piano Lesson, Boy Willie shows no sign of growth or change until there is an unexpected turn in the play. He has the same mindset throughout the play until he gets in contact with Sutter’s Ghost.