The Piano Lesson

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

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

Many people have come across a time in their life where any action or event from the past comes back to haunt them in their present life. This past event either affects their future actions in a negative or positive way. A play in which a character must contend with an aspect from the past is, The Piano Lesson by August Wilson. In August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, Bernice Charles, struggles with embracing her family’s history of enslavement and oppression. She does this by deciding to keep the family’s heirloom, the piano, but yet denies its presence. She also decides to move up north from the south and away from her family’s history with her Uncle Doaker and daughter Maretha, again proving that she wants nothing to do with her past. Later on in the play, Bernice and her brother Boy Willie encounter Mr.Sutter 's ghost. Bernice decides to go against her idea of never touching the piano and plays it for the first time since the death of her parents. With the support of their ancestors they successfully fight back the ghost and Bernice realizes it 's a mistake to avoid or run away from her past. The actions taken by Bernice at the end of the play reveal that despite their past anyone is capable of embracing and moving on from their past in a way that will help them benefit their future actions positively.

“The Lesson” is a very well written fragment of the past. This is a story from New York’s inner city of Harlem where children did not have substantial education much less the money to obtain it. Not only is this story about a poor girl out of place in an expensive toy store, it is also a social commentary that teaches readers an amazing life lesson. The character Miss Moore introduces

Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist, and political activist he wrote more than 60 plays during his lifetime and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925. He once said "Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." Shaws words mean that people who are single-minded cannot view life from a person who is open-minded. There are plenty of reasons to not change. But without change, how will you progress? Without progress, how will you grow? In The Piano Lesson, August Wilson shows how Boy Willie is not susceptible to change his mind, or his views on the piano. Although Bernice wants to keep the piano for sentimental value, Boy willie wants to sell it because it is considered a grudge to the family and

In The Piano Lesson, by August Wilson, Berniece struggles with her personal connection with the piano. Her families past reveal her relationship with the piano. The piano meant a lot of things to a lot of different people over the years. The piano is a complex and multilayers symbol; its meanings are both personal and political. For example, Berniece was affected by the piano positively and negatively. She had a sentimental connection with it and never wanted to get rid of it. But the piano had a lot of history behind it and it also carries a lot of meaning to it. Berniece stopped playing the piano for a while because of all the spirits inside of it and how they started to haunt other people. Berniece saw Boy Willie getting attacked by Sutter’s ghost and that made her realize she needs to let go of the past and play the piano again. But what was ironic is that she tried her best to forget the family history that came with the piano, she can never let go of her families past no matter what she does. This reveals that people should come to good terms with their past and learn to overcome it.

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 August Wilson’s Piano Lesson Berniece struggles with the past of her family and the violence that is within her family. She de-contextualizes the piano by not telling Maretha about her relatives, whose images are carved into the piano and keeping her in the dark when it comes to her family and the past. With Berniece struggling to keep Boy Willie from selling the piano for land she slowly starts to realize that maybe the uplift that the family needs is just remembrance of their family and their past. The piano is symbol for the legacy or past of relatives and by playing the piano at the end of the play shows that remembering your family’s past or carrying on their Legacy in the smallest way shows that wherever they are that they’re rejoiced

An antagonist is a character or group of characters that oppose the protagonist or causes the drama in the literary work (Literary Devices). “The Piano Lesson” was written by August Wilson in 1990. “The Piano Lesson” is about Boy Willie trying to sell the piano that his sister, Berniece, kept that belonged to their mother. Berniece refuses to let Boy Willie sell the piano because of the message behind it. Boy Willie causes all this drama so that he can sell the piano and use the money to buy land. The antagonist in the play “The Piano Lesson” is Boy Willie, even though he is not an evil character.

The predominant theme in “The Lesson” composed by Toni Cade Bambara is creating an understanding to adolescents of all the opportunities life has to offer; a lesson on social class and having a choice which society you choose to live in. Miss. Moore who takes on the responsibility to educate the young ones has intentions of more than just taking the children to the store for amusement. Miss Moore 's informal lessons are aimed at educating the neighborhood children

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 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

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.

The Lesson is a short story about a family of African American children. The children are cousins to each other, living in a low class neighborhood. Miss Moore is the tutor to these cousins. None of these from the family of cousins cared for Miss Moore. One day all children with Miss Moore hired a cab to Fifth Avenue. All these were gathered outside a toy store looking at the toys. All the children were confused and feeling out of place. Miss Moore asked the children about their experience. Sugar, one of the children commented on the amount of food consumed by all in one year that equals the price of one sailboat toy at the store. Sylvia, another important character does not like Sugar's comments and tries to stop her until Sugar pushes Sylvia off. Sugar believes that there is no democracy in the country in the presence of such inequity. The main aim of the story was to show economic inequity in the society in the 1960s.

As the ivory keys moved up and down I listened to the sweet sound of my grandma's piano playing. I knew that I wanted to be a piano player and that If I were to do that, then my grandma would have to teach me so that one day I could play just like her. I started playing piano when I was seven and I have been playing ever since. My grandma has taught me for five years and will continue to teach me. Piano is very big and important in my family. My cousins play and my grandma also teaches them and we all have to practice for her and other activities. Piano playing has shaped me into the person I am today because having a good attitude,practice, and hard work has helped me by teaching lessons that will help me know what I want to be when I grow up.