The Piano Lesson

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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

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