Family Legacy In Boy Willie's Poem

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Recommended: Importance of black American literature

6. Theme - family legacy & how to best preserve it
While Boy Willie hopes to make a mark by selling the piano to buy land once owned by the plantation owner who enslaved his family, Berniece would rather preserve their memories by keeping the piano untouched. Their struggle on the best way to cherish their family legacy illustrates a challenging debate of how to best uphold the family legacy.
Berniece protects the piano because she wants to preserve her family’s memories and their struggles in obtaining it, remembering that “For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled… mixed it with the rest of the blood on it” (1.2). This imagery of her mother’s blood mixing with the blood from her other family members as she polishes helps emphasize …show more content…

Sung to a steady beat, these work songs helped the African Americans maintain morale during their long toiling hours chopping wood. These lyrics provide descriptions of the repetitive labor they performed: raising and lowering axes.
Wining Boy’s song is a story about his experiences in Arkansas: “I started out one morning / To meet that early train / He said, “You better work for me / I have some land to drain” (1.2). In this song, he takes on the role of an African storyteller, recounting the hard life many African Americans faced. With the song, Wining Boy helps preserve the culture and their blues songs.
At the end of the play, to expel Sutter’s ghost, Berniece sings a song while playing the piano, telling her ancestors “I want you to help me” (2.5) over and over again. While the lyrics of this song are not mind-blowing, the repetition in the song is a characteristic often found in African songs. With this song, Berniece learns to call on the power of her family by playing the piano, finally embracing the good and bad parts of her history.
9. Symbol - the piano as a symbol of the family’s

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