The Piano Lesson- August Wilson

The piano lesson was an overwhelming play written by August Wilson that mainly describes the struggle between the siblings over the ancestral inheritance that is piano that was carved by the images of their African ancestors and the image if their grandfather. This play was seemed to be accurate for that time as racism between the black and white men was at top and this play also highlights this thing.  The plays also concentrate on the importance of the culture and the inherited pieces. Most of the scenes would remain same as still in the modern society we are losing and forgetting the importance of our heritage. The paper analyzes the themes and the characters of the play that are still consistent in the Pittsburgh society. Most of the play is still applicable and reliable in today’s society as still the black are termed as inferior, the class of slaves.

Boy Willie and Berniece plays important characters in the play and both have their own significance. Boy Willie was an impulsive and fats talking brother of Berniece. The play starts when he came back from Mississippi to sell his piano and to take the land where his father worked as a slave. He was having a firm belief that black men are equal to white men and he acted steadily in the whole play. He knows the consequences of this as he had also a risk of being murdered for raising the voice but he stood firm and said that black men should also stand on the top like white men. Boy wants to sell the piano to secure his future and he doesn’t worry about the legacy while his sister signifies the importance of cultural and inherited items. Berniece was the sister of Boy Willie and she was a guard and was protecting the piano for being sold as she like to saves his ancestral things. (Bogumil, 1999)

I think that the play was awesome and if is dramatized again many acts and scenes would remain consistent as still there is a gap between the white and the black men in the American society. Blacks are still considered as inferiors and they are often made slaves so Boy Willie reactions and his desires would remain same. Both main characters that are Boy Willie and Berniece play their best role and both shows that they are going in the right way as their thinking was different. Boy Willie wants to sell his piano that was their heritage and own the land that they had been working on for several years as slaves and Berniece was against this but Boy Willie doesn’t understand the knowledge that Berniece had.

The foremost conflict of this play was the piano that Boy Willie was in favor to sell while his sister was determined to keep the ancestral legacy with them. This conflict would still be reliable as there are still many blacks in Pittsburgh with several of them having their ancestors as slaves. His desire was to transform the past by changing the future. Although at the end he realized that he should change the future by keeping the past as it is. (Study Guide)

Most of the scenes and dialogues of Boy Willie would be the same as in the American society there is still discrimination and black are often made slaves.

"If my daddy had seen where he could have traded that piano in for some land of his own, it wouldn’t be sitting up here now. He spent his whole life farming on somebody else's land. I ain’t gonna do that. See, he couldn’t do no better. When he come along he ain’t had nothing he could build on. His daddy ain’t had nothing to give him. The only thing my daddy had to give me was that piano. And he died over giving me that. I ain’t gonna let it sit up there and rot without trying to do something with it."

“If Berniece don’t want to sell that piano…I’m gonna cut it in half and go on and sell my half.”  (Wilson)

These dialogues of Boy Willie would still be applicable as this shows his determination and willpower to buy that land in which they were slaves but now they have the opportunity to pay for the land and become the masters of it. He was not in the favor of keeping the ancestral legacy although at the end of the play he finally understands that there is no way that he could escape from it and he had to succeed in his life by keeping his ancestral legacy and learning from the past.

Conclusion

After analyzing the two main characters and their role in the present society it is concluded that my views are very clear about the play. The play had highlighted many issues regarding our society and now we again want such plays which can highlight the current issues in such a nice manner. In my view the play was an important step for the African Americans that have highlighted the slavery.

References

Bogumil, Mary L. (1999) Understanding August Wilson. University of South Carolina Press

August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. Study Guide. Retrieved from: https://americanstage.org/pdfs/The-Piano-Lesson-Study-Guide.pdf

Wilson, August (n.d) The Piano Lesson, Act 1, Scene 2.