"The Piano Lesson" By August Wilson
Set in Pittsburg in 1936, the play “The Piano Lesson” revolves around the contradictory standpoints of two siblings, Willie and Bernice as they fight over one of their family’s most prized possession, the piano (Wilson 23). Boy Willie is so determined to sell the piano and use the proceeds from the piano sale to purchase a piece of land from the Sutters, a white family who had murdered Boy Willie’s father. Bernice refuses to listen to the proposition to sell the Piano. She reminds her brother Willie that money what the piano costs is impossible to be bought with money. She goes to the extent of carrying her late husband’s gun to protect the piano.
The title of the play is not about a manual on how to play the piano but it instead depicts an individual with a lesson to learn. It is worth noting that by the time the play ends all the characters involved seem to have learnt a lesson in some way or the other. The ghost of Sutter (the man whose family legally owned Charles’ family as salves) seem to be haunting the Charles family (Wilson 76). The family tries all the strategies to eliminate the ghost but each tactic seems to be flopping. A very, a preacher, frantically tries to seek divine intervention so as to eliminate the ghost, and Boy Willie struggles to physically confront the ghost but all these proves to be futile. The prayers make the ghost mad and Boy Willie is constantly hurled down the staircase. When Bernice eventually plays the piano and eventually seeks intervention from her ancestor’s spirits the ghost is finally eliminated.
The piano played by Bernice to exorcise Sutter’s ghost is used symbolically to represent her family history as well as the history of other African Americans. Bernice has tried all she could to forget her family’s past and all that transpired. Nevertheless, anytime she plays the piano again she discovers the benefit of knowing, appreciating and accepting your past. The moral lesson of the play is that we should accept and be proud of our history despite how painful it might have been. The 137-year-old piano represents several meanings in the play. Since it was purchased through slave trade, it initially epitomizes the interchangeability of human beings and objects during the era of slavery. While under the custody of Willie Boy, the piano is a symbol of his endeavors to keep the family united and the physical documentation of the family’s history. Boy Charles on his part initially understood the carvings on the piano as narratives. Doaker asserts that Boy Charles viewed the carvings as the tale of their entire family and as long as it was still under the custody of Sutter then it implies they were still enslaved to him (Wilson 172). After the piano was found missing, Boy Charles was burnt inside the boxcar by Sutter’s men. Subsequent to this incident, the piano symbolically represented violence as well other than slavery and dedication of the Charles’ family. As Bernice contends, her mother, Mama Ola “polished the piano with her tears for seventeen years” (Wilson 101). Much of the African culture and beliefs was quickly eroded away when the slaves were initially taken to America (Wilson 73). Over a period of time, their languages, religion, music and other cultural practices became obsolete. However, the blend of African and European cultures led to the birth of a new culture for the African Americans. Therefore Bernice playing on the piano towards the end of the play not only symbolizes the history of his family but also that of the African Americans as a whole.
Throughout the play, several genres of music are featured majorly focusing on African American styles and ways of leaving. Examples of such songs include; blues, boogie-woogie, and railroad song styles. As the author has illustrated trough the title, the music lesson expresses interaction with an individual’s past legacy and an endeavor to comprehend how one ought to utilize their past to better their future. The numerous musical intervals in the play points to certain moments in the history of the black Americans. For instance Doaker’s railroad song adversely mentions place names that maps out a travel route via the south of the country (Wilson 67). Towards the end of the play, music gains even more important meanings and interpretations. When Bernice plays the Piano to exorcise ghosts, here music is presented as an authoritative medium over which humankind can communicate with the divine (Wilson 47). Almost in the entire play, several characters speak to the departed across their graves. The act of speaking to the dead signifies the main technique by which the Charles’ family comprehends and understands their legacy. Regularly this is always executed through music; Wining Boy, for instance, directly talks to the “Ghosts of the Yellow Dog” at the railroad junction, thereby gaining new potency the voices of the ghosts (Wilson 123). Bernice through her songs brings the spirit of the dead to the present and connects the living with the past. At childhood, she constantly plays the piano to initiate a conversation between her dead father and her mother.
Works Cited
Wilson, August. The Piano Lesson. New York: Plume publishers, 1990. Print.
