The Piano Lesson by August Wilson - Research Paper Example

The Piano Lesson by August Wilson August Wilson believes that history is a depiction of his own memories. Possibly this is the reason he avoids historical study. As observed by Sandra Shannon (Elam 18): Wilson’s ten-play chronicle challenges the authority of history. Preferring dramatic conflicts that evolve fundamentally from his own memory, he consciously avoids historical research and turns instead to the blues for inspiration for mood, place, time, subject and dialogue for each play. The blues evoke an atmosphere conductive to remembering. During the progression, the descriptions of collective and personal memories work literally and figuratively to tell the effort of the characters to be black and complete. This paper argues that the piano symbolizes the connection between the African-American historical experience and the mystical world of the sacral and the spectral. Similar to all of the plays of August Wilson, The Piano Lesson occurs in Pittsburgh and explores the struggles and attempts of an African American family to fight its birthright or heritage and the uncertainties of the future. Boy Willie is the play’s protagonist, who arrives at Pittsburgh with a companion, a wagon filled with watermelons, and a desire to recover the land that his family tilled and cultivated for centuries as slaves. This monetary desire also involves selling the family’s piano, which symbolically and factually carries the heritage of the family. The memory of Berniece of the hardships and misery of her mother over the piano influences her own relationship with it: “Mama Ola polished this piano with her tears for seventeen years. For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled. Then she rubbed the blood in… mixed it up with the rest of the blood in it” (Wilson 52). Her memories of the piano’s motherly love and ancestry are markedly different from the recollections of Boy Willie and with the solid male-dominated history of the defeat and subsequent transfer of the piano into the safekeeping of Berniece by the Charles family’s men. Berniece’s memories mold her womanhood and individuality, but her failure to completely deal with these memories limits her and stops her from genuinely moving forward. The play’s action is motivated by disagreement over how to most effectively use history, as something which would honor those that happened in the past, or as basis for the present, which would strive to achieve its vow. The point of the disagreement is the piano. Boy Willie has travelled to Pittsburgh to get his portion of the piano, which is presently in the ownership of Berniece, his sister. Boy Willie is a ruffian, and thinks that the profit from the piano gives him his finest opportunity to surpass the social and economic persecution that has troubled the men in his family (Boan 73). Yet, his vision of a better life is prevented by the refusal of Berniece to put on sale what is, she believes, a very important symbol the family’s history. All over the play, therefore, the piano becomes a criterion through which conflicting perceptions of the past could be assessed. The outcome is that Wilson has re-interpreted the difficulties of bearing the weight of history, which is at the core of his other stories, into an issue of how to use history in the most effective way. As Wilson said (Krasner 327): “The real issue is the piano, the legacy. How are you going to use it?” Wilson dreamed of writing a ten-play series that would highlight the history of African Americans in his country. He tool on the responsibility of an ancestral ‘griot’ whose obligation was to protect and perpetuate his culture’s history and heritage: “… the role of the griot is significant since it is with him we mark the beginning of African literary tradition as we know it” (Miller 97). So as to accomplish this he engaged in his ten-play series which would introduce the experience of the African Americans to his fellow citizens and to the rest of the world. One of the main interests of Wilson is in the precise, truthful, and appropriate depiction of the African-American history (Elam x): “The inability to suppress, control, manipulate, and right histories of race has repeatedly affected the social and cultural dynamics of African American life”. According to Boan (2002), he believes that African Americans are the only people who must have the power over the truthful and full representation of the African-American history. The mission of Wilson is a critical and productive involvement in the depiction of African Americans and the illustration of history by the mainstream culture. Through this, the representation and spread of history becomes a necessary practice by which his characters acquire a motivating self-awareness, a real sense of their integrity, dignity, and value. Hence in his ten-play series Wilson aimed to show an explanation of African-American past by a person who was an heir of and outcome of that past and thus able to depict a personal and direct narration of the outcomes of such rich past (Favorini 247). According to Wilson, his ‘blood memory’ (Elam xviii) is an inspiration for his work. ‘Blood memory’ is defined as “the idea that there are some intrinsic experiences, some ontological knowledge that blacks remember just because they are black—also has the potential to seem essentialized” (Elam xvii). Harry Elam explained that the blood memory of Wilson was not a genetic or anatomical element, but a “… representation that dramaturgically blurs the lines between figurative and real… Central to Wilson’s dramaturgical project is the idea that one can move forward into the future only by first going back” (Elam xviii-xix). The themes of historical treasure and their incorporation into the present day are the pillar of Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. Almost all of the characters are interested in and focused on the past. Berniece is fascinated and infatuated with the sad history of the piano and the demise of her husband. Avery convinces Berniece to forget what happened in the past by accepting his marriage proposal and serving the church by playing the pian (Nadel 105). Lymon fears that if he goes back to Mississippi, he will be trapped in the farmland like what happened to him before. Wining Boy, who was a piano player before, is discontented and frustrated with his previous life since people merely sought him for his songs (Snodgrass 191). Boy Willie desires to escape their heritage of slavery, and pursues this vision with courage and determination. How does the central metaphor of a piano express this? Both the symbolic and the factual images of the piano work to explain Wilson’s representation of African-American history as a dynamic connection between the past and the present; basically, the piano serves as the important connections to history. Primarily, it works as a reminder tool for the spread of oral history; and also, it works as a treasured familial remembrance, linking the past and the present, and the living and the dead. The piano resembles instruments used to perpetuate and transmit the oral history of certain African populations. In numerous instances, the designs on the piano work as a symbolic or pictorial representation of memorable parts of the family’s past, including the descriptions of the ancestors. Doaker, for instance, remembers parts of his own ancestry so as to tell to Lymon the reason Berniece refuses to put the piano on sale. Boy Willie also takes on this part when he starts to narrate the piano designs’ history to Maretha so as to make her proud, and he says to Berniece that knowing the piano’s history Maretha “could walk around here with her head held high” (Wilson 91). The music produced by the piano, from the spontaneous boogie-woogie of Boy Willie to the Rambling Gambling Man of Wining Boy, goes back to Africa, to the ancient forebears and their traditions (Nadel 107). The designs sculpted on the piano protect a history-producing, graphic memory that links the family to their forebears who carried these traditions and music from African and converted them within the traditions of slavery. Although this role of the piano may appear to be entirely historical, the links formed between the living and the dead, and between the past and the present, by means of the piano are portrayed in supernatural ways. In the play’s creative world, the piano works as a place of actual spiritual links with the forefathers, working like holy ancestral sanctuaries in numerous customary African societies. Berniece is the only character in the story who could almost understand this element of the piano, although at the same time she detaches herself from the piano (Wilson 70): I used to think those pictures came alive and walked through the house. Sometimes late at night I could hear my mama talking to them. I said that wasn’t going to happen to me. I don’t play that piano because I don’t want to wake them spirits. They never be walking around in this house. She has faith in the supernatural ability of the piano, seeing it as a bridge to the realm of the dead or her ancestors, yet also she prevents these spirits from influencing her life. The blood that pours into the piano heightens its mystical powers and resembles African traditions of sacrificing urine, food, and blood over religious symbols of the gods or ancestors so as to nourish and preserve their spiritual being (Nadel 108). The piano originally turns into a family belonging with the mortal sacrifices of the father of Berniece and Boy Willie. Then, as remembered by Berniece, her mother, Mama Ola, gives everyday sacrifices at the piano’s stand (Wilson 52): You ain’t taking that piano out of my house. Look at this piano. Look at it. Mama Ola polished this piano with her tears for seventeen years. For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled. Then she rubbed the blood in… mixed it up with the rest of the blood on it. Every day that God breathed life into her body she rubbed and cleaned and polished and prayed over it. “Play something for me, Berniece. Play something for me, Berniece.” Every day. “ I cleaned it up for you, play something for me, Berniece.” The piano turns out to be a memorial to Mama Ola’s killed husband. The pouring of her tears and blood into the piano is a washing habit that is perfected every day with songs, and the piano turns into a prayer altar where she communicates with or feels her dead husband and sad history (Nadel 108). Yet after Mama Ola’s demise and with the later delivery of the piano to Pittsburgh, the inheritors failed to establish such spiritual link to the piano and it sooner or later becomes the cause of domestic fight. What are the functions of ghosts in the play? The plot of The Piano Lesson focuses mainly on the existence of a ghost. In fact, ghost tales are scattered all over the play. Most confusing to scholars are the revenging ghosts in the play, the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog who is believed to have shoved the big Robert Sutter into death and the ghost of Sutter, which disturbs the house of Doaker. Wilson’s includes the angry ghosts of Sutter as a nasty reminder of slavery. Boy Willie, who initially mocks the presence of a ghost, eventually becomes convinced that the ghost lives in the piano and makes its presence known to Maretha, Berniece, and Doaker. He insists that in order to get rid of the ghost they must get rid of the piano by selling it. With the help of his sister, Boy Willie easily fights the ghost to free his family of a series of devastating and discouraging events. In the play, an absence of spiritual relationship with the piano later almost gave rise to murder when Boy Willie tries to take the piano away from Doaker’s house despite Berniece’s refusal. This absence of spiritual link also enables the attack of Doaker’s house by the ghost of Sutter, who starts to use the piano to perform his songs. Sutter’s ghost was successfully removed or exorcised from the house when Berniece summons her ancestors’ watchful spirits. The fight against Sutter’s ghost changes the dispute that almost ended with murder of a sibling and the ruin of the kinship ties into a dispute against a common foe that only the teamwork of the members of the family can fight—with Boy Willie battling the phantom in a physical manner and Berniece asking for the help of their ancestors. Sutter’s ghost is the intangible representation of the historical view of slaveholders, and possibly even the power of the mainstream culture over history. Such view is banished from the community with the reformation of the historical link or kinship ties. In this sense, the removal of Sutter is a symbol of historical self-image for Africans in America. Since this self-image takes place through banishing the historical viewpoint of the mainstream culture, it is also a petition for an independent historical system and history itself, required by a cultural diversity rooted in a diverse historical standpoint and roots. Wilson’s emphasis on the mystical aspects in the story receives disbelief from literary scholars, who were confused of the reason and the manner the slave-owner’s phantom dwells in the family treasure—the piano. Scholars call the piano a prop that allowed Wilson to reconcile the disagreements between a quarrelling sister and brother. But Devon Boan contradicts (Snodgrass 193): “[The ghosts] are mythical explanations, yet they serve to authenticate the lives of the men who died and became the Ghosts (just as Boy Willie seeks authentication through ownership of Sutter’s land), and they serve to authenticate the sacredness of the piano itself—it was important enough for black men to die for, and it was important enough for white men to kill for.” The most vital theme of The Piano Lesson is not who wins in the end, whether Berniece or Boy Willie, but that these siblings show courage. Boy Willie is eager to get rid of Sutter’s ghost for the family’s final freedom. Moreover, Berniece is eager to cooperate with her brother by making use of the piano to reestablish the link with the family’s past. They are prepared to do anything to protect their own beliefs and principles. Although the supernatural components may work on a number of levels of importance and value and communicate various historical beliefs and insights, they are also merely what they appear to be— spiritual experiences. For Wilson, this inclusion of a metaphysical viewpoint is similarly essential as historical understanding in explaining cultural diversity, and the readers find a combination of history and metaphysis in the realms of this play (Snodgrass 193-194). It is essential to understand that Wilson regards this African memory not as a permanent cultural aspect but as a worldview constantly exposed to transformative mechanisms. His stress on spirituality in the early 20th century suggests his personal interest in how such viewpoint is evolving over time. Conclusions Wilson’s The Piano Lesson is apparently a discourse on history, particularly on the African American experience. The sufferings and hardships endured by Africans during the time of slavery are represented in the form of a piano. The piano, as well as Sutter’s ghost, becomes the symbols of the connection between the mystical world and historical experience. Works Cited Boan, Devon. The Black “I”: Author and Audience in African-American Literature. UK: Peter Lang, 2002. Print. Elam, Harry Justin. The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2004. Print. Favorini, Attilio. Memory in Play. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print. Krasner, David. A Companion to Twentieth Century American Drama. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Print. Miller, Christopher. Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa. UK: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Print. Nadel, Alan. May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993. Print. Snodgrass, Mary. August Wilson: A Literary Companion. New York: McFarland, 2004. Print. Wilson, August. The Piano Lesson. New York: Paw Prints, 2008. Print. \ Read More