Women In The Piano Lesson

Throughout history women assumed subordination is a constant theme; although in the 1930s and 1920s America this changed. The Twenties brought on woman’s suffrage while the Thirties saw and encouraged a more progressive in women. August Wilson writer of The Piano Lesson supported women’s press towards equality and expressed this in the play. The Piano Lesson follows the Charles family and their heirloom, a piano with carvings of their once enslaved family. Boy Willie wants to sell the piano to purchase land where the Charles family labored as slaves for the family of a man named Sutter, who has died. Bernice, Boy Willie’s sister refuses to let him sell it. Sutter’s ghost, the main antagonist terrorizes the family as his spirit wants the piano

When Boy Willie takes Grace home with her and she realizes he does not have a bed for them to sleep on her response is “Let’s go to my place. I got a room with a bed if Leroy don’t come back there” (Wilson 73). In the 1930s a woman’s life revolved around a man. It was believed they could not live a fruitful life without a husband thus always needing one in their lives. Leroy is alluded to as Grace’s past love interest here and because there is a possibility of Leroy coming back we can also assume they recently split. Grace fits into the stereotypical woman because although she had recently left her boyfriend she was out that night looking for someone to fill that void and make her a woman again. Their situation is not ideal Grace tries to fix it but also keep Boy Willie by offering up her place although Boy Willie is not deserving she is still willing to have him and accommodate to his situation as a woman should. Grace further depicts a stereotypical female typecast in the same scene as Bernice finds Grace and Boy Willie on her couch when. To stop Bernice from coming down the steps Boy Willies says, “It wasn’t nothing. Everything’s alright. Go on back to bed” he continues on to Grace: “That’s my sister. We alright. She gone back to sleep” and they resume kissing (74). Boy

At the end of the play, the male characters actively fail to get rid of Sutter using their methods of Christian exorcism and violence; “There are loud sounds heard from upstairs as BOY WILLIE begins to wrestle with SUTTER’s GHOST…. BOY WILLIE is thrown down the stairs. AVERY is stunned into silence” (106). From the beginnings of their lineage the males of the Charles family to properly resolve conflict as the women have sat in the back resulting in greater struggles. Bernice realizes this as, “She crosses to the piano. She begins to play… With each repetition, it gains in strength.... The sound of a train approaching is heard. The noise upstairs subsides” (106-07). Taken out of direct application to the play and assessed with society one can assume Wilson believed women to be equally powerful and capable on their own compared to men as none of the living male characters actively attributed to the final resolution as Bernice did. Without her Sutter’s ghost, would continue to haunt them or anyone who the piano was given