August Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson first performed in 1987 is still up-to-date, for it evokes contemplations on the issues which are still under discussion, and they are regarded as eternal questions.
The main theme of the play under consideration is the importance to understand, accept and cherish our past, which is symbolized by the family heirloom piano. The events of the play take place in the late 30s, during the depression in the United States. And in those grave times one of the African-American families tries to find reconciliation with the ghosts from the past and move on. And almost every character of the play serves to reveal the main theme. For instance, Boy Charles, the main characters’ father, is the first one in the family to become concerned with their family past preservation which he sees in piano with his ancestors’ images carved on it: “Boy Charles used to talk about that piano all the time” (Wilson 45). This man perceives the piano as “the story of our whole family” and can’t stand the fact that someone possesses their history, as if they were “still in slavery” (Wilson 45).He even steals it from his ancestor’s master Sutter and he brings their future to his family to show the future generation what it was like. In this case the man paid a very high price for his past revealing to the next generation, which didn’t deny the importance of the past understanding but enhances it.
But already his siblings don’t want to accept this past: his daughter Berniece is afraid of it and his son Boy Willie doesn’t mind it. But they can’t understand so far that they will never have the future unless they take their past. Of course, these two have their reasons to have doubts and fears: Berniece can’t accept her family’s past because it invokes the horrible ghost from the past – Sutter, who has killed her father. She doesn’t touch the piano, she feels anxious about her family’s slavery past with its indignities, unfairness, and horror, but still, she feels she cannot take it away and sell; she understands that the piano is the “soul” of their family and it is impossible to “sell your soul for money” (Wilson 52). Only at the end of the play Berniece puts herself together and plays the piano, which exiles her ghost and reconciles her with the past, so she is ready to share it with her daughter and move on.
But Boy Willie is not anxious about the ghosts and his family’s entire past, he only thinks about the present and the future. He doesn’t understand the symbolic essence of the piano, he only sees the means to get money for his enrichment, and he wants to become a farmer on Sutter’s land. Thus, he can deny his past, selling it, to obtain an uncertain future in the place of his ancestors’ slavery. But Berniece makes him understand the importance of their historic preservation. His sister’s playing the piano opens up his soul, and he, finally, accepts the significance of their spiritual heritage.
Thus, Wilson considers possible arguments pro et contra the importance to cherish one’s past via the characters of his play. And the ending of the playsets the exceptional necessity to preserve one’s past to share it with the next generations, for it is universal truth that the future is impossible without the past.
Works Cited
Wilson, August. The Piano Lesson. New York: Plume, 1990.