The Piano Analysis

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Every person has a past, every race has a heritage, and every family has a legacy. In Wilson’s play, four protagonists, Boy Willie, Berniece, Doaker and Wining Boy are all wounded by their traumatic pasts’ and have only have one reminder of their family history – the piano. During the beginning of the play, Wilson describes the setting and illustrates a piano that is dominating the parlor and gathering dust in the Charles’ home. The piano is covered with carvings of events and “mask-like figures resembling totems.” Wilson then begins to describe the carvings as “graceful” and rendering a “power of invention that lifts them out of the realm of craftsmanship and into the realm of art.” Nevertheless, to the Charles’ family, the piano is not just an ornately carved piano but rather the only symbol of their family legacy; the only way to understand the piano is to go back to the period of slavery. In the play, Doaker begins to reveal the family history to Boy Willie and explains the significance of the piano. During the slave period, Boy Willie and Bernice’s' grandfather's (Willie Boy) was owned by a man named Robert Sutter. Sutter had traded their grandmother and uncle for the piano as a present for his wife, Miss Ophelia. After getting tired of the piano, Miss Ophelia missed her slaves so much, Sutter made Willie Boy hand-carve the faces of his wife and son's faces all over the piano. However, Willie Boy didn't end there; he carved all of his ancestors onto the piano and “all kinds of things that happened with [the] family.” Miss Ophelia became ecstatic when she saw the piano, because “now she had her piano and her niggers too.” When she looked at the carvings in the piano, she could see all the faces of the slaves she missed and the...

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... past live on, something that cannot be measured in monetary things. Wilson truly shows that understanding the past is valuable and worth more than monetary things, something that should be treasured and understood, especially in the African American past with its endless struggle for self. Moreover, with a culmination of religion, heritage, and family, the Charles’ family was able to purge their pain and sorrow, confront the truth and embrace its values.
Furthermore, August Wilson is truly embodies the connection between the past and the future in his play, The Piano Lesson. Through his characters, Boy Willie, Berniece, Doaker and Wining Boy, he shows how we shouldn't be fear the past and avoid it and it should be valued, embraced and accepted. Only then will you be free to move on in life. The only way to know where you are going is to know where you came from.

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