Piano Lesson Symbolism Essay

August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, tells a story of a family haunted by the pain of their past and their struggle to find peace to move forward. The story begins with character Boy Willie coming up from the south visiting his sister Bernice. Boy Willie introduces the idea of selling the family’s heirloom, a piano, to raise enough money to buy the land on which his ancestors were enslaved. However, both Boy Willie and his sister Berniece own half a half of the piano and she refuses to let Boy Willie sell it. Through the use of symbolism, Wilson uses his characters, the piano and the family’s situation to provide his intended audience with the lesson of exorcising our past in order to move forward in our lives. Our past will always be a

Wilson highlights the fact the piano is full of stories that are directly linked to Berniece, which affect her current negative feeling towards it. Also, as a young girl, Berniece had to play the piano for her mom, so she could talk to her dead father. This demonstrates that not only is her family physically depicted on it, but also spiritually connected to it.

The apparitions in this play are The Ghosts of the Yellow Dogs and Sutter. Both these ghosts have the motivation of revenge. Having two separate motives for the piano; Berenice values the piano's history while her brother, Boy Willie, wants to sell the piano and use the money to buy the land his family was enslaved on. The Charles family is being haunted by the ghost of Sutter, whose family once owned theirs. Sutter's ghost appears after he falls down his well and the cause could be the Ghosts of the Yellow Dogs, the spirits of the Charles family's ancestors. The ghost's appearance causes conflict within brother and sister to rise. Sutter comes back after his death as a ghost to avenge his murder and reclaim his piano. In act 1 scene 1, Berniece states, “Just go on and leave. Let Sutter go somewhere else looking for you”. Berniece thinks that Sutter's ghost appeared because her brother, Boy Willie, killed him. In reality, the ghost of Sutter just reminds Berniece about her family's history and the piano. The piano represents her family’s past, struggles, and history. Berniece cannot accept her family’s past and move on. “Mama ola polished this piano with her tears for seventeen years. For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled. Then she rubbed the blood in… mixed it up with the rest of the blood on it.” This shows

One of the main characters to conform to this is Boy Willie. He goes to Doaker’s home to sell the piano to acquire Sutter’s land. He totally disregards the symbolism of the piano and views it as an object. Boy Willie’s ancestors were mistreated and enslaved and the piano was an encompassment of his ancestor’s history, which he overlooks. The main reason Boy Willie wants to

Hans Christian Anderson one said that where words fail, music speaks. Nowhere is this truer than in The Piano Lesson by August Wilson. The Piano Lesson tells the story of family that struggles in the side and what do with a family heirloom that takes the form of an ornately carved upright piano. Bernice wishes to keep the piano but her brother, Boy Willie, wishes to sell the piano for land because according to him Bernice is not doing anything but letting it sit there and rot because no one is playing it. Yet despite what Boy Willie says the piano actually gets quite a bit of use in the play. Along with playing the piano the characters can also be seen singing in the play. The songs the characters sing and perform does a good job of relating the characters thoughts and actions to a more musical medium. From songs such as Maretha's beginners piece on the piano to Wining Boy's more experienced yet melancholic tune the music of The Piano Lesson tells us about the character's pasts and presents.

In the book, there are several cultural values presented some of which are based on religion, family, music, rituals, class structure, and race. In regards to race one would be able to notice that stained tension between the past Sutter family, as well as Willie Boy’s family. The admired tension still present in the words of Doaker’s when he says that if the Sutter family owns that piano, they own their family. That shows that ruminants of slavery

Amy Tan uses symbolism to show the cultures and how this interacts with the conflict of the story. One example is she used the game of chess as more than

When the ghost of Sutter starts bothering the Charles family, a family friend, Avery, tries to exorcise the ghost; however, it failed. At this point, Berniece realizes what she must do in order for the world to return to peace: she must play the piano. According to the narrator, Berniece “crosses to the piano. She begins to play. The song is found piece by piece.

In the middle of Bernice Charles's parlor it sits, unmoved and wooden. How it came to be there is a story which her uncle Doaker tells well. Her father Willie Boy used to work as a slave under the ownership of Mr. Sutter. He was an amazing wood crafter and continued to bring cash in for his "superior". But Willie Boy didn't always belong to Sutter, instead he used to belong to a certain Nolander, whose wife owned the very piano that he was traded to Mr. Sutter for. When Mrs. Nolander wanted to buy him back as her slave, the new owner refused. Instead he allowed Willie Boy to take his talents into their house and carve a picture into the wood of their piano. He was only supposed to carve himself and Mama Bernice, but instead continued to carve pictures of his whole family that he stored in his memory. After the piano was finished Boy Charles, Willie Boy's father, felt that he should take the piano because he would "say it was the story of [their] whole family and as long as Sutter had it…he had [them]"(Wilson 45). On the fourth of July in 1911, it was done. But sadly, Boy Charles was killed, hiding in a box car afterwards. After his death, Bernice's mother broke down and brought in a woman to teach Bernice how to play. She said that when Bernice played she could hear her father talk to her, and so Bernice continued to play, until her mother's death. Now she won't touch the piano, yet refuses to

Boy Willie, however, wants to release the past and sell the family piano so he can have a new start in life and forget the painful past. "The Piano Lesson" is both unique to the plight of African-Americans and universal in its depiction of the human condition (Gale, 2000, p249). The sibling rivalry, past history versus present time and future, storytelling and gender relationships all cross both unique and universal boundaries. To illustrate, even in today's society there are sibling rivalry that pit brother against sister, brother against brother or sister against sister together to the point of bitter battle. In addition, there are still people in today's society that have difficulties in resolving painful past experiences with the present and future. In regards to gender relationships, there are still a lot of mysteries in the realm of love between two people. Bernice is the African-American way, staying true to her roots and not parting with the heritage. Although she finds this painful, she will not part with her heritage. Her heritage is “tangible in the presence of the piano itself” (Sparknotes, 2014). Therefore, even though the theme of this play surrounds itself around African-Americans, the situation can easily be applied to all races and time periods.

In the poem, the purpose of symbolism is using an object or reference to describe a deeper meaning to a story. The poem " Music of Spheres" by displayes that how to use symbolism to describe an object with deeper meaning. This poem is written by Jean Follain who was a French author, poet and corporate lawyer. The reason why I selected this poem, is because Jean Follain only used a few sentences to reflect its deep symbolic meaning of this poem. Language makes us human. It helps us to understand our everyday experience and ideas. It will become more powerful by using symbolism instead of the customary language. In the written world, the role of symbolism in the poem is significant. It produces the same feeling as

He certainly identifies the piano with Ada. He strokes it and dusts it while naked, he tries to pry into its secrets like a lover. Ada even snaps the lid shut on his fingers when they stray into its recesses. It becomes the bargaining tool in their growing love affair and when she sends him her love note it is written on a piano key. At the end, the piano is considered a coffin and Ada throws it overboard of the Maori canoe, to get rid of her past. To start a new life.

In The Piano Lesson each central character learns a lesson. August Wilson uses plenty of symbolism throughout his play, the strongest symbol being the piano itself, representing the family's history, their long struggle, and their burden of their race. Throughout the play, the conflict revolves around the piano, and Berniece and Boy Willie's contrasting views about its significance and about what should be done with it. Berniece is ashamed and cannot let go of the past, or the piano, and Boy Willie wants to move his life forward, and use the piano to do so. Wilson portrays the 'lesson' of the piano as accepting and respecting one's past and moving on with one's life gracefully, through Berniece and Boy Willies contrasting actions and the

Symbolism is a literary technique that is used to clarify the author's intent. Sometimes it is used to great effect, while other times it only seems to muddle the meaning of a passage. In "Young Goodman Brown," Nathaniel Hawthorne uses objects and people as symbols to allegorically reveal his message to the reader.

     The poem Piano, by D. H. Lawrence describes his memories of childhood. Hearing a woman singing takes him to the time when his mother played piano on Sunday evenings. In the present, this woman is singing and playing the piano with great passion. However, the passionate music is not affecting him, because he can only think about his childhood rather than the beauty of the music that exists in his actual space.