African American Culture In August Wilson's Play 'The Piano Lesson'

April 21, 2004
African American Culture
The Piano Lesson

In the Piano Lesson, August Wilson traces the family heirloom back three generations, to an incident in the family’s slave legacy that has left them to face the present on the terms of a history that, later is not just communal (done by all members of the family) and familial. The action of the play is driven by conflict over how best to engage history, which would celebrate the event of the past, or as a foundation for the present, which would seek to fulfill its promise. The conflict it the piano. I think August Wilson’s play “ The Piano Lesson” tell us that although there is nothing wrong with perusing the American Dream, it should not be at the expense of one’s
heritage or culture. It also showed difficulties in releasing the past and moving forward in one’s life. It is centered on the conflict between brother ( Boy Willie) and sister ( Bernice) over differences in values and beliefs. The main characters are: Boy Willie, Bernice, Doaker( Bernice and Doaker’s uncle, mediator), Lymon( friend of the family, running from the law) , Winning Boy, Avery( the Pastor, wants to marry Bernice), Marteha( Bernice’s daughter), Winning Boy ( alcoholic, Doaker’s brother), and Grace ( Boy Willie and Lymon’s friend). Boy Willie, the great-grandson of the slave whose art work is on the piano. Boy Willie has come north to Pittsburgh to claim his half of the piano, which is currently in the possession of his sister, Bernice. He is a bully, and feels that the money form selling the piano will offer him his best chance to escape the economic and social oppression that has burdened the men of his family since slavery. The result or theme is that Wilson has redefined the frustration of carrying the burden of the past, which is at the center of play, into a question of how best to utilize the past?

This question is brought onto focus when Doaker ( Boy Willie and Bernice’s uncle), tell Boy Willie’s friend Lymon the reason that Bernice refuses to sell the piano ( 40-46). He relates the story of his grandfather’s carvings on the piano in a tale instilled with images of bondage, acceptance, and retribution that it seems to have been headed down, father-to-son, detail-by-detail, since the time of it’s origin (42). For Boy Willie, the power of enslavement is not something that was told to him, it is something that he lives with on a day-to-day basis, which includes the problems/events of his own life, which constitutes his mind. Boy Willie is not happy with his economic status. He wants his 40 acres and a mule so he tries to obtain James Sutter’s land, ( that his family worked on as slaves), which wold offer him for the first time in his life a sense of achievement and self- realization. Boy Willie wants to sell the piano for is own economic and social emancipation. On the other hand, Bernice doesn’t want to sell the piano because it has sentimental value. Although she hasn’t played the piano since her mother passed away. Bernice refuses to play the piano, and has done so ever since her mother’s death, as a way of forgetting the past- of keeping the spirits from “ walking around...the house”- even as she honors it’s sacredness. Bernice is the head of the house, all of the decisions ultimately go through her. Bernice is willing to do whatever it takes to keep the piano even if she has to result in killing Boy Willie. Bernice says: “ I ain’t playing with Boy Willie. I got Crawley’s (her ex-husband) gun upstairs. He don’t know but I’m through with it”(86). Bernice considers the piano of the families history. The piano represents the trial and tribulations that their ancestors went through, all of their sweat and tears are embedded in that piano. Their ancestors worked sun up to sun down and all they have to show for it is the piano. Bernice also has issues that she is dealing with.
She is still mourning the lost of Crawley ( her deceased husband), and a single parent raising her daughter. Bernice believe’s in accommodating. I think Bernice’s lesson is that she has to learn how to deal with the past in order to move on into the future. Keeping the piano in the family doesn’t change anything. According to Bernice it has no past and she doesn’t want to re-live it either. This does not make her better or the good person. Her daughter doesn’t know the history of the piano, she does not know where she came from. I couldn’t imagine growing up like that. I think that the piano needs to stay in the family, but I also think that the piano should be used. My great-grandmother left me piano, not a day goes by without me using my piano. That is the only thing that I have left. So when I play the piano it’s like my great-grandmother is there with me, sitting next to me on the bench singing to the
melody. At least Boy Willie has come to his senses.
He knows what he is capable of when he says: “See now... I’ll tell you something about me. I done strung along and strung along. Going this way and that. Whatever way would lead me to a moment of peace. That’s all I want. To be as easy with everything. But I wasn’t born to that. I was born to a time of fire. The world ain’t wanted no part of me. I could see that since I was about seven. The world say it’s better off without me. See, Bernice accept that. She trying to come up to where she can prove something to the world. Hell, the world a better place cause of me. I don’t see it like Bernice. I got a heart that beats here and it beats just as loud as the next fellow’s. Don’t care if he black or white.. Sometime it beats louder. When it beats louder, then everybody can hear it. Some people get scared to hear a nigger’s heart beating. They think you out to lay low with that heart. Make it beat quiet and go along with everything the way it is. But my mama ain’t birthed me for nothing. So what I got to do? I got to make my passing on the road. Just like you write on a tree, Boy Willie was here” Boy Willie is relating to having a double consciousness. He was emasculated at the age of seven. He has no education only the street smarts from the experiences he has gone through. Towards the end of the book Boy Willie realizes that the piano has meaning when Bernice gets rid of Sutter’s ghost by singing on the
piano. Boy Willie says: “ hey Bernice... if you and Martha don’t keep playing on that piano... ain’t no telling ... me and Sutter both liable to be back”. In the end Bernice was right because the piano has a purpose, and Boy Willie reconcile their differences.