In The Piano Lesson by August Wilson, Berniece and Boy Willie are siblings who both want the piano that belongs to their family. Berniece wants to keep the piano because it holds their family history and it reminds her of the hard work her mother put into the piano. However, Boy Willie wants to sell the piano to buy land from Sutter’s brother because to him the land, like the piano, are both a part of his family’s history and both represent being free from Sutter. Both siblings fight over who has more rights to the piano and deserves it. In August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, Berniece struggles with being able to embrace her past and acknowledge its importance. Which reveals that instead of hiding the past we should embrace it and let it help …show more content…
When Bernice moves to Pittsburg she takes her family’s piano with her to remind her of what they have gone through to get to where they were today. However, over time the piano is only used by Berniece 's daughter Maretha to practice playing classical music instead of the music she and her family had played. In act 1, Berniece hides the history and value of the piano from her daughter because the piano was brought into their family because of “killing and thieving”. Her father died because of the piano and Wining Boy, her father and Doaker stole the piano from Sutter. To Berniece the piano brought back the memories from her past that she did not want to remember or her daughter to know about. She does not want her daughter to think that she can take someone 's property for selfish reasons and she does not want Maretha to participate in the “killing and thieving” (Wilson 1232) that had happened to get the piano. However, she also does not want to let go of the piano because if she does she would lose the only thing that can tell and remind people of what happened and the history of her family. This shows that Berniece does not want to loose the connection she has with both her past and heritage even though she refuses acknowledge the importance they have had in her life. She says, “ For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled. Then she …show more content…
Say it was the story of our whole family and as long as Sutter had it… he had us. Say we was still in slavery.” ( Wilson 1228). Doaker says that Boy Charles was obsessed with the piano, he felt that if Sutter had the piano they were still his slaves because they were traded to get the piano and they were considered Sutter 's property during slavery. Boy Willie like his father wants to get something that Sutter owned in order to be free from Sutter. However, he does not realize that the piano also represented being free from Sutter. In addition, to Berniece the piano means a lot while Boy Willie only sees it as a profitable object. He says, “ I 'm talking about trading that piece of wood for some land...You can always get you another piano. I’m talking about some land...You can’t do nothing with that piano but sit up there and look at it.” (Wilson 1231-1232). Boy Willie only wanted the piano in order to get some land from Sutter 's brother. Moreover, the land Boy Willie wanted to buy was the land that his ancestors worked on when they were owned by Sutter, and he felt that he had rights to the land. However, he missed to acknowledge that the value and importance of the piano was the same as Sutter 's land. He thought that the land was more important and significant than the piano that contained carvings of his ancestors and his family
To Berniece, Boy Willie, and Doaker, the piano means different things. To Berniece, the piano acts as a piece of her ancestors, and whenever she uses it, she can sense her deceased family who used it in the past. To Boy Willie, it represents just a piece of property that can be sold to collect more money for the family. Lastly, to Doaker, the piano exists as a piano that is both good and bad for the family, but still has to be kept based on the history inside of it. The piano to him portrays itself as an instrument that is good and bad for the family, but they have to keep it because it is an artifact. Although they all have different thoughts on the piano, Berniece, Boy Willie, and Doaker can all agree on one thing: the piano is an artifact of family history.
The books of A Lesson Before Dying, Song of Solomon, and The Piano Lesson are all classic tales of African American Literature. While written in assorted periods and by different authors, the lessons found in between the pages transcend time. They recount stories of injustice, perseverance, and success. Memory and the past play a critical role in understanding each character’s mindset. A Lesson Before Dying portrays the past as both a hindrance and a source of motivation. Song of Solomon exposes the belief that knowledge of the past is the key that unlocks the door to self discovery. The Piano Lesson introduces the idea that a person can turn painful memories into a source of motivation and pride. Although each book stresses different principles of how to handle the past, they agree that heritage awareness plays an important role in molding a healthier future.
characters are in engaged in a dialogue which is common for a mother and a daughter to
Boy Willie’s family piano, engraved with illustrations of his family history, has great sentimental value and his sister, Berniece, believes it is more important and crucial to honor their mother who lost their father after he stole it in an act of defiance against the Sutter family which ultimately led to Papa Boy Charles death. Her mother polished the piano for seventeen years after the death of their father, “seventeen years worth of cold nights and an empty bed. For what? For a piano? For a piece of wood? To get even with someone?” (1232). It represents everything that she lost, raising her children on her own, and so much more. She poured her soul into maintaining its impeccable appearance in an attempt to preserve her relationship to Papa Boy Charles. The carvings portray the history of her family, the hardships they went through to get to where they are today, and their resistance to slavery. In “The Dialects of August Wilson’s Piano Lesson”, Harry Justin Elam suggests, “Sutter’s possession of the piano constitutes a form of enslavement… While no longer physically bound to the slave master, Wilson believes that African Americans remain spiritually and physiologically imprisoned by the dominant culture unable to express or discover
Mom’s words and doctor’s advice did not become a way to obstruct the narrator and his pride. Paying no attention to Mom and the doctor’s warning, the narrator took his crippled brother out and trained him anyways regardless of Doodle’s physical restraints, because he is embarrassed. “When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn’t walk, so I set out to teach him (Hurst 204).” Even worse, the narrator knew it was his pride that made him to force Doodle into cruel training, “I did it for myself; that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother (Hurst 206).” In addition, due to his embarrassment, the
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.
Throughout history women assumed subordination is a constant theme; although in the 1930s and 1920s America this changed. The Twenties brought on woman’s suffrage while the Thirties saw and encouraged a more progressive in women. August Wilson writer of The Piano Lesson supported women’s press towards equality and expressed this in the play. The Piano Lesson follows the Charles family and their heirloom, a piano with carvings of their once enslaved family. Boy Willie wants to sell the piano to purchase land where the Charles family labored as slaves for the family of a man named Sutter, who has died. Bernice, Boy Willie’s sister refuses to let him sell it. Sutter’s ghost, the main antagonist terrorizes the family as his spirit wants the piano
Grant Wiggins is the narrator of the novel. He was born in the plantation just outside of Bayonne, Louisiana. He lived there until he went away to college, and when he went back home, he was detached from the people in the town because of his education and different religious beliefs. He is easily angered and often very selfish. This is seen in the way that he acts towards Vivian. He consistently does not give her the attention or respect that she deserves. He refers to her children as simply, “the babies,” and only cares about the names of his and Vivian’s future children. Grant goes from shallow and selfish at the beginning of the story, to caring and loving at the end.
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.
In conclusion, Brother shows his self-interest in how he treats his younger brother. He treats his younger brother, Doodle, as something to ‘fix’ and he cannot accept his brother as he is. When Doodle finally learns to walk, Brother’s selfish need for a more ‘ideal’ little brother is not satisfied for long. Soon he demands a little brother who can run, jump, climb, swim, swing on vines, and row a boat. When he gives Doodle lessons for these activities, he does not do so for concern about Doodle wanting to be able to do them, but because he wants Doodle to be able to be a ‘normal’ brother.
In this novel, The Piano Lesson, we learn that some characters are doing their best to leave their mark on the world. A main character, Boy Willie, continually attempts to do so. For instance, he says, “I got to mark my passing on the road. Just like you write on a tree, ‘Boy Willie was here.’” By this, he means that he wants to make sure the world knows that he was here, and that he left something behind. Just as his grandfather carved beautiful, intricate designs into the piano and left it for his family, Boy Willie wants to do something similar. For example, he wants to buy Sutter’s land and make it nice for generations to come. Ironically, Boy Willie wants to sell his grandfather’s statement in order to make his own.
Their child is disable and has a delayed learning in physical activities. Brother nicknames him Doodle because he crawls like a doodle bug. Doodle learns to crawl at three, at age six Brother teaches him how to walk. To motivate Doodle brother says, “You can do it. Do you want to be different from everybody else when you start school?” Doodle replies, “Does it make any difference?” Brother responds, “It certainly does” (182). This shows how determined Brother is to make Doodle normal and avoid embarrassment at school. This also shows the standards of society and how it puts pressure on kids to be normal and fit in. Society puts pressure on everyone, it’s impossible to go somewhere and not be judged for not fitting society’s standards. Some people, like Brother will go to extremes to not stand out. Brother eventually teaches Doodle how to walk and on his sixth birthday they reveal Doodle’s walking abilities. Brother explains, “Everyone began to hug me, and I began to cry. “What are you crying for? Asked Daddy, but I couldn’t answer. They didn’t know that I did it for myself; that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother” (180). This shows how Brother’s pride is taking over him, the only thing that matters is fitting in at school. He is crying because he is ashamed that he has no power over his pride. Brother explains how he is a slave to his pride and that he has no control over his actions regarding the protection of his pride. All of this leads to Brother pushing Doodle to his limits. Brother and Doodle are running home in the rain, Doodle can’t keep up with Brother and Doodle falls
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.
Wilson demonstrates how one should accept and respect the past, move on with their life or slow down to pay respects to their family?s history, by describing the struggle over a symbolic object representing the past like the piano. Often people will sulk in the past and struggle with themselves and the people around them when they cannot come to terms with their personal history or a loss. Others will blatantly ignore their personal history and sell valuable lessons and pieces of it for a quick buck to advance their own lives. Berniece and Boy Willie in The Piano Lesson are great examples of these people. Through these contrasting characters and supernatural occurrences, Wilson tells the tale of overcoming and embracing a rough and unsettling family history.
“I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.” This was a dream of a young man, who was a victim of racism, and that man was known as Martin Luther King Jr. Throughout history stereotyping and bigotry (intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself) has been rampant. During the Great Depression the racial segregation was evident within the African-American community because of their dark complexion. Racism towards African-American consists mostly of slavery. A text that illustrates such discrimination is August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson”. “The Piano Lesson” is a play that is set in the year 1963 in Pittsburgh. The play is about a brother and sister who have two different thoughts about a piano. Boy Willie (brother) wants to sell the piano for land and Berniece (sister) on the other hand wants to keep the piano since it hold their history of slavery. Throughout the text of “The Piano Lesson” Wilson portrays racist stereotypes through various symbols, characters and conflicts that were built in the play.