Plot Summary Of The Play 'The Piano Lesson'

The Piano Lesson Plot Line
We recently read the play The Piano Lesson and encountered an interesting plot line. The exposition of the story starts when Boy Willie shows up unexpectedly at his sister’s house. As the story progresses, we encounter the rising action. The rising action is when Boy Willie informs Berniece that he is selling their mother’s piano. The climax starts in a couple different places: when Sutter appears, and when Berniece plays the piano. The falling action and resolution happen when Berniece is thanking God for taking Sutter’s ghost away and Boy Willie decides to leave the piano alone. In the exposition of the book Boy Willie shows up to his sister’s house early in the morning. Boy Willie and his friend Lymon came
up to sell watermelons out of the back of Lymon’s truck and decided to stop by Berniece’s. They did not make themselves as welcome as they could have because they showed up very early and woke the entire household. As they story moved on, they finally became more welcome in the house and caught up with the family members. Boy Willie caused the rising action to begin by announcing that he was going to take the piano that belonged to his mother and sell it for land. Berniece has had the piano in her possession since their mother passed away because Boy Willie didn’t care to have it. Boy Willie and Berniece started fighting about what should happen to the piano as soon as Boy Willie said he was selling. Berniece doesn’t want to let the piano go because it has a lot of family history in it and is a very important piece of memorabilia. One piece of the climax happens when the ghost of Sutter appears in the upstairs of the house. The ghost of Sutter appears in the house because he is technically the legal owner of the piano. Berniece was upstairs when she saw Sutter and came running down blaming Boy Willie for bringing the ghost with him. We then learned that Uncle Doaker saw Sutter’s ghost was in the house long before Boy Willie came to visit. Another place in the play that could be considered the climax is when Berniece invites Avery over to bless the house. Avery is in the process of “blessing” the house to try and get rid of Sutter’s ghost when Boy Willie decides to make fun of him. When Boy Willie starts to mimic Avery, Sutter’s ghost appears and start a fight with Boy Willie. This is probably the best part of the climax because Boy Willie is being thrown around the house and down stairs by a ghost that he can’t beat. The falling action and resolution come together to make one last part of the play.
After Boy Willie fights Sutter’s ghost, Berniece realizes that she must play the piano that she feels is haunted with spirits. She realized that playing the piano was the only way to get rid of the ghost and move on from the “haunted” past. Once Berniece plays the piano, the spirits leaves the house and Berniece starts thanking God for relieving her from the past. The final part of the play is Berniece giving thanks and Boy Willie departing from his family once again. Boy Willie decided to leave the piano in the hands of his sister and move on to something
else. The major conflict in this story is whether or not Boy Willie should be able to sell the piano. The piano is a big part of their family’s history and has moved around a few times. Berniece wants to keep the piano in the family because she feels as if it is a symbol for all of the things the family had to do to keep the piano. Boy Willie feels as if the piano is not as important as she thinks it is and would rather sell it for land. The plot line of The Piano Lesson is slow in my opinion because there seemed to be a long gap between the rising action and the climax of the story. I really liked the play because it was entertaining and funny but I thought it should have progressed a little faster. The exposition and rising action were close together but then we had to wait a long time to get to the climax. After the climax of the story, the falling action and resolution came very quickly and then it was over. The conflict was finally resolved but didn’t necessarily give an explanation as to what happened with Boy Willie and his land or what Berniece did with the piano.

The Piano Lesson Theme The Piano Lesson has several different themes but I think the main theme is the past.
The past seems like it would be a main theme because it is brought up the most in the play and has the biggest part. Other themes that are noticeable in the play are race and gender. These themes are not as common and don’t play a big part in the story like the past does in my opinion. The piano in the play symbolizes the family’s history and what they have gone through to get where they are in the play. Originally, the ancestors of the Charles family were slaves for the Sutter family. Grandpa Sutter decided to trade Doaker’s grandmother and father for a piano for his wife. Eventually the Charles family got revenge on Sutter by stealing the piano out of his home when he got it back. When Grandpa Sutter got his piano back from the person he traded slaves for, he had Doaker’s grandfather come and engrave pictures in it. Boy Willie views the piano as a piece of wood while Berniece sees it as much more. Berniece feels that the piano has the spirits of her ancestors in it and doesn’t want to let them go. She realizes that the piano is a very important piece of history because it holds things from the past that no one knows about. The piano is important to Berniece mostly because of her mother who polished the piano with her tears for many years and cared greatly about the
piano. Another way the past is a theme of the play is because people from the past come back. Sutter is a character that appears in the beginning of the story as someone who falls down his well and passes away. As the story moves on it talks about Sutter’s family and their role in the movement of the piano. Sutter’s ghost appears around the house and makes him very unwanted. By having Sutter’s ghost reappear, it brings the past back because his ghost is there in search of the piano that originally belonged to him. The main theme in The Piano Lesson is the past. The past was brought into the play in several different ways but not all of themes were noticeable to me. I think the most noticeable ways the past came into the play are through the piano’s history, Sutter’s ghost, and Berniece’s feeling about the piano.