Summary Of ' The Piano Lesson ' 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.

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.

Throughout The Piano Lesson, Bernice is constantly getting into arguments with her brother over a piano that holds carvings of her family history. This piano is a very

Can a treasured object of the past serve as a teacher for the future? Once people share the historical significance of it, an object can symbolize the overcoming of hardships of those lives in which it becomes a part. Therefore, it may indeed “instruct” future generations to glean wisdom from the past. August Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson centers on the trials and triumphs of a family affected by the enslaving of their ancestors and by current racial prejudice. An embellished piano, which bears the carved images of their enslaved ancestors accounts for the conflict that the Charles’ face. The Charles’ siblings inherit the piano from their mother, widowed upon the murder of her

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

In Player Piano, everything is controlled by machines and computers and depends on productivity. The managers and engineers only create new programs for more productive production. Even the rates of production and consumption are calculated by a computer (EPICAC), which is seated in the large Carlsbad cavern system. The EPICAC computer even determines the people's careers and in this way their whole lives. It gives intelligence tests to everyone, and on the basis of their results it sorts people into two categories - suitable for university entering exams and suitable for 'work'. The university studies allow their graduates to become managers, engineers, writers or public relation workers. You may become a writer only if

Winner of multiple awards such as the Tony Award, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize, August Wilson is known most for his forceful cultural plays. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Wilson was born to a white father that later abandoned his family, and a black mother. Wilson dropped out of school in the ninth grade after being accused of plagiarism. Wilson after went to public libraries and read various books; this was an initiation for Wilson and his successful future. When Wilson first started writing he didn’t think he was able to write his own works because of such great writers before him. “Quote black literature criticism”. However

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.

She looked just like that. And he put a picture of my daddy when he wasn't nothing but a little boy the way he remembered him." (44) The piano is a symbol of the family because it is literally covered with this history. Doaker states that Boy Charles "say it was the story of our whole family and as long as Sutter had it . . . he had us" (45) Under normal circumstances, a piano would not be something valuable enough to risk your life in order to steal. However, it is clear that Boy Charles viewed it as an important family heirloom, a symbol of their family history. By stealing the piano, he hopes to end the control that Sutter has over them.

As an adult, Jing-mei’s mother offers her the piano once more, and Jing-mei accepts the gift. Appreciating the encouragement and faith her mother bestows upon her Jing-mei decides to care for the piano. The piano piece

As Avery says, she is carrying stones with her, letting the piano weight her down, keeping it as a grave reminder of her family?s history. If Berniece were able to touch the piano, she would be able to accept and overcome her fear and disgrace of the violent past, but she is not ready to do that.

The main conflict of the play is the 137 year old piano, which holds the key to the family history. A history which is physically represented in the piano itself both by the spirit believed to be held within and in the many sophisticated carvings.

     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.

My life has always been tied to the piano in some shape or form. I can remember the first notes I ever produced. They came from a large Cable upright piano that had sat unused and out of tune for decades. From my early childhood and on my relationship with the piano consisted of nothing more than fleeting encounters. Some days I would sit down and simply play notes I thought sounded nice, but mostly the piano acted as a decoration in my home. It wasn 't until moving to Oklahoma to be with my mother 's family that anything serious developed concerning the piano. I had always been far away from my family, so when I met up with my grandmother we took the time to catch up. She mentioned that my mother used to play the piano quite well. Up until that point I had never given the piano much thought, but I began to think about my mother and all the old piano books she had accumulated from her adolescence. That set in motion my desire to learn how to play and an eventual reappraisal of the way I looked at music and the world around me.