The Piano Lesson By August Wilson

The Negro Digs Up His Past by Arthur Schomburg is an article he wrote in 1925, in which he complaint that somehow through the years African American history has been questioned and denied as many claim that Africans have no history at all. He uses this paper to illustrate the importance of recording the collective accomplishments of African Americans and that we must at all costs save any evidence, so that things like this do not happen again in the future. He wants to make sure to leave no place for doubts that African Americans have a history and is irrefutable in the eyes of skeptics and the world. According to Schomburg, “Though it is orthodox to think of America as the one country where it is unnecessary to have a past, what is luxury for the nation as a whole becomes a prime social necessity for the Negro(Schomburg 231).” He emphasizes that blacks have to dig deep into their own history in order to hold their own against the current oppression. He wants to set the record straight and restore the history that was omitted, the history that was denied to them, a history that has somehow been stolen from them forever.

In the Fences, by August Wilson shows that life of African Americans in the U.S. in the 1950s with the story of Troy and his family. Wilson uses the symbol of the fence to show the desires of each character like Rose’s desire is to keep her family together, Troy’s desire is to keep death out and to be not bound forever, and Bono’s desire is to follow Troy, his best friend, as an example of the right way to live and to be with Rose and Troy who are basically his family. Rose and the other seen characters represent people and show gender roles of the time, like Rose is a housewife, Troy is the provider. Also Cory is the new generation of emotion over responsibility, Gabriel represents the war heros that were permanently disabled from war

In today’s society, many have come to believe what they have been instructed over the years, whether it is fiction of facts. Living in a world, where only certain race can be seen as superior to others. Schomburg was a pioneer beyond his times. In the article “The Negro Digs up His Past”. The beginning of this essay revealed a powerful statement, “The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future” (Arthur Schomburg). It is very clear, Schomburg realized the importance of being knowledgeable on your true history. “History must restore what slavery took away, for it is the social damage of slavery that the present generations must repair and offset”. Therefore, I acquiesce with such statement, it is up to the present generation to fight, and to aspire on restoring what was taken away. As we acquired more intelligence, today’s generation must continue on indoctrinating one another on our true history. However, let’s not forget, slavery was not the onset of the Negro history; when in fact, slavery interrupted the Negro history. Meanwhile, long ago, before slavery, Africans ruled the world, built nations, mastering in architectural ideas, philosophies, etc. Nonetheless, it is crucial for the Negro to dig up his past, for from it; today’s Africans shall conceive their true potential, and their ancestor’s greatest achievements. Just as Schomburg found his motivation after being told “Negroes has no history. On the other hand, he then stated “The Negro thinking

Despite knowledge being suppressed against African Americans during the 1800’s and 1900’s, the attempt for an African American to seek knowledge is presented in the stories, “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass and “The Library Card” by Richard Wright. It is invariably true that knowledge is both a blessing and a curse, which is why both Douglass and Wright can relate to the inflicting role that knowledge plays in people’s lives. Knowledge is presented as a form of a blessing in both stories as both Douglass and Wright endure the chance to educate themselves, Knowledge is expressed as a form of a curse in both stories as both Douglass and Wright face the risk of encountering with the possible unbearable truth behind the knowledge they seek to obtain, also in both stories, both Douglass and Wright develop a self hatred after learning new information that has been kept from them since they are prevented the chance to be informed.

There is no doubt that African Americans have a rich cultural background and history like the many different ethnic groups who settled in the New World, whose origins lie in another country. For this reason, America was known as the melting pot. However, the backgrounds of each of these cultures were not always understood or, in the case of African Americans, accepted among the New World society and culture. Americans were ignorant to the possibility of differences among groups of people until information and ideas started to emerge, particularly, the African retention theories. This sparked an interest in the field of African culture and retention in African Americans. However, the study of African American culture truly emerged as a result of increased awareness in America, specifically through the publication and findings of scholarly research and cultural events like the Harlem Renaissance where all ethnicities were able to see this rich historical culture of African Americans.

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.

In The Piano Lesson, the central symbol of the play is the 137-year-old piano, an object that incarnates the family history. A gift purchased through the exchange for slaves, it originally exemplifies the interchangeability of person and object under the system of slavery. This traffic in flesh reaffirms a white kinship network at the expense of black ones (Johny, 2005) (Image, 42). The piano bears the marks of generations of both racial oppression and sexist gender ideology.

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.

A heritage does not define a role in society. The lives of Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass and Barbara Ehrenreich all demonstrate the human ability to thrive despite the real implications of one’s heritage. While they may hold different beliefs concerning the importance of the culture of their progenitors, they all lead lives undefined by the roles expected by society based on their heritage.. King and Douglass both identify with their ancestral roots. Ehrenreich remains decidedly unaffiliated with her ancestry, a result of her being raised without any cultural traditions. Conversely, society defined both King and Douglass by the color of their skin and expected them to be the willing victims of slavery and segregation. They broke those roles by becoming

One of the writers defending the rights of the Blacks is August Wilson. His works included a series of ten plays called “the Pittsburg Cycle” for which he received two Pulitzer prizes. One of his works which criticized the maltreatment of the Blacks is The Piano Lesson. The play is located in Pittsburgh in 1937, the hometown of Wilson. The setting is of extreme importance as many people desired travelling up north to escape discrimination and racism in the south hoping to find a steady job in some factories in Pittsburgh.

A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines, is a novel based on a court case involving African Americans and Caucasians in the 1940s. In this novel, an incident takes place where an African American man, Jefferson, arrives at the wrong place at the wrong time and is sentenced to the death penalty following a biased trial. Another man in the novel, Grant, also an African American, as well as a school teacher, must help Jefferson, whom the white people call a ‘hog’, become more of a man before his death sentence. In doing so, Grant undergoes a transformation as well throughout the novel. In order to explain how Grant has undergone a transformation throughout the novel this essay will explore how he changes as a teacher, how he learns from

Abstract: Since the Transatlantic Slave Trade, African Americans have been dependent upon those of fairer complexions to educate them about the culture and history of their own people. Unfortunately, the trip over to the Americas caused them to lose touch with several parts of their being; native tongues, culture/heritage and most of all their self-righteous. Somewhere along the way they forgot that they are creators of every major practice; from metallurgy to agriculture; practices that essentially influenced the entire world. The Transatlantic Slave Trade essentially and effectively brainwashed a group of people. It caused people of the African diaspora to lose sight of who they really are; installing negative and inferior perception of their ancestry, while also installing white superiority through their mindsets. African Americans innately depended on white people for every part of their life, even later slavery. In regards to education, African Americans depended on white Americans to build infrastructures for the education of black people. This unfortunately continued the cycle of white dependency. While African Americans thought they were enhancing their knowledge, all they were doing was becoming more equipped servants to their white

August Wilson claimed in The Ground on Which I Stand that African Americans needed to stand together and let white people accept their own value. He mentioned that as a part of the American society made the culture of this country diversity. African American had their own culture which was completely different from white people’s one. Although two races shares two different cultures, there were still a lot of common characters between two types of people. Since two races made contributions to this country together in more than a hundred year, they should treat equally. Moreover, he suggested that African American can also perform great in art and music area, but they had only few theatres. He believed that theatres can help the society to accept African American because art is beyond race. Thus, African American needed to have more theatres.

The issue of slavery in the United States has been hotly debated for centuries. Historians continuously squabble over the causes and effects of America’s capitalistic, industrial form of slavery. But two of the most heavily discussed questions are whether the institution of slavery destroyed African culture in America, and whether it reduced slaves to a child-like state of dependency and incompetence. Anthropologist Melville Herskovits, and historian Stanley Elkins both weigh in on this debate: Herskovits with, The Myth of the Negro Past, and Elkins with, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life. In, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, Elkins asserts that African culture was all but destroyed by a repression of the slaves’ rights, at the hands of their masters. He claims that complete dependence on their masters and a lack of collective cultural identity and family bonds, reduced slaves to a child-like state of helplessness and ignorance, and childish behavior called the ‘Sambo’. Herskovits takes a different stance in this debate. In, The Myth of the Negro Past, he claims that African culture was not completely destroyed by slavery, and that the ‘Sambo’ stereotype was no more than a myth or at least a gross generalization. He uses slave revolts and the persistence of African culture in American in music, dance, and language as evidence to prove this.

    The narrator describes a vision he had while he was listening to Louis Armstrong, exploring back into the history of slavery. He his introduced in an intangible voice , someone who has lost his specification through the society . The narrator casts back on an earlier period of the 20th century, encouraging that a newly educated black class felt guilty of a past that was no flaw of its own. The narrator's  granddad emerged  to be in this line hoping to forget the history of slavery, but on his deathbed reveals that the struggle against white oppression is still continuing .