The Impact of Great Depression in the Piano Lesson - Assignment Example

The Impact of Great Depression in “the Piano Lesson” Introduction Wilson’s play, “The Piano Lesson”, focuses little on the economic frustration and disappointment of the Great Depression, but much on the socio-cultural tenets and temperaments of the era. Set in the historical backdrop of the Great Depression and revolving around a migrated African American woman’s struggle to preserve ancestral legacy, the play could relate little to the economic impacts of the depression on the characters for whom the economic downfall of the age was of less important than their struggle to search for identity, to reorient themselves in a society that so far had been brutally cruel to them, and to adapt to their new status as free members of the white dominant society. Far from embracing the American Dream that suffered the most from the Great Depression, the African Americans -who were still unfamiliar with their status as a member of the society after the end of slavery- could barely imagine, what the American Dream meant during the Depression era. When, for a white American, moving to the North meant chasing after fortune, for an African American it meant not only to seek for new hopes but also to run away from the Jim Crows; from the hostility of the Southern white society to its own black child (Bellamy 23-28). Yet in the play the Great Depression is an invisible reality in which Wilson’s characters are submersed. Clearly neither the Great Depression nor any type of economic disappointment is not in the play’s focus. They are greatly affected with the consequences of the said historical event and they have to survive economically (Burgan 45-7). But they must choose the way of their survival whether by selling their legacy or by keeping it intact and enlivened. Referring to this invisible existence of the Great Depression, Sarah Bellamy says, Even though it is set in the 1930s, The Piano Lesson does not contend with the rampant disappointment of the Depression era, but with the political temperature of a country yet divided around the abolition of slavery. The American dream was alien propaganda in African American culture. (23) Growing Optimism of the First Generation of the Born Free African American In play ‘The Piano Lesson’, Wilson appears to be more concerned with the growing optimism in the first generation of the born-free black America during the Great Depression Era. Berniece and Boy Willie characterize two different trends of this African-American generations’ optimism for the oncoming years. The brother and the sister stand at the crossroads on which the born-free African-Americans “found themselves during the first half of the century” (Bellamy 27). During the Great Depression, the African-Americans found themselves both lacking a sociopolitical as well as cultural identity that is supposed to based in history and legacy and economically unequal in comparison to the white society. In this regard, Sarah Bellamy says, “Black people knew from experience that the wealth and success of white America had come at the disproportionate price of slavery” (23) Living in the ancestral land in the South, the ownership of Sutter’s land where his ancestors once toiled their labor is more important for having a material identity than the ownership of a 137 year-old piano, as Boy Willie says, “I dont need a piece of wood to tell me who I am, to remind me of my past. If the wood can give me a future, if selling the piano will enable me to buy the land where we were slaves, then Ive come full circle.” (Wilson 76) He rather emphasizes the identity based on tangible gain like money and obviously defies what is based on the intangible past. Boy Willie’s Capitalist Mentalist Mentality In Contrast with Berniece’s Clerical View during the Great Depression Boy Willie as well as a number of other characters such Sutter’s bother, Leymon reveal a great deal of the capitalist zeal of the Great depression era. Referring the capitalist zeal of the age, Bellamy says, A capitalist mentality was increasingly more common in lower and middle-class America at this time. American optimism was cautiously returning as the economy recovered” (26). Boy Willie likes to view the piano essentially a fixed or non-productive commodity. He considers Sutter’s land more valuable because of its productive value in comparison to the fixed commodity. So he wants to invest the money, in land, which he will get selling the piano. Since he knows that owning a land or working on one’s own land is more profitable than working on others’ plantation, he desires to buy Sutter brother’s land. This capitalist zeal has affected Willie’s behavioral mode to a large extent. (Burgan 33-35) While convincing his sister, Willie solely focuses on how buying the land will bring more profit: “You can sit up here and look at that piano for the next hundred years and it’s just gonna be a piano. You can’t make more than that. Now I want to get Sutter’s land…I got the land and the seed then I’m alright….Cause that land give back to you” (Wilson 51). African-Americans’ Socio Economic Life During the Era Pictures of socioeconomic life in the late 30s have been occasionally depicted in the play. For lower class people like Boy Willie the age was both economically depressive and full of economic possibility (Simon 23-4). Born Free African-Americans who worked on others’ plantations often were cheated by the plantation owners. In this regard, Bellamy says, “Plantation owners were responsible for maintaining the books and they commonly falsified the records to ensure that sharecropping farmers made little to no profit.” (27) Such exploitation forced many of these plantation workers to seek for new means of survival including to moving to the North in search of jobs, owning lands, etc. The Charles Family in Pittsburg itself is an example of such migration during the Great Depression. The era was depressive for both the rich people like Sutter Bother and poor people like Willie. People like Sutter Brother were selling their inheritance in the South and seeking for opportunities to build their fate in the manufacturing market in the North. Therefore, both black and white poor people in the South owning a piece of land and work on it were quite plausible. Bellamy comments that it “seems to be the break Boy Willie has been waiting for” (26). The American Dream is quite promising for poor people like Boy Willie in the South. But the reality of the American Dream was quite different for people like Doaker and Winning Boy who had already migrated and settled in the North. Being disheartened by the difference between the reality and the dreams these people including Berniece choose to preserve and rely on the past for surviving their identity. Doaker articulates this hopelessness as following: “That land ain’t worth nothing no more. The smart white man’s up here in these cities. He cut the land loose and step back and watch you and the dumb white man argue over it.” (Wilson 87) Conclusion On the surface level, the play revolves a dispute between a sister and a brother who live apart, one in Pittsburgh and the other in Mississippi. But ultimately the audiences are confronted with the question “whether the Charles Family should sell their legacy, the Piano in order to survive during the Great Depression”. (Pereira 56) The dispute is on selling a 137 year old piano which was decorated in the African sculpture style with totems. It is more like a family heirloom which the brother wants to sell in order to buy a land in the south. But his sister Berniece opines that since it is owned by the family for so long it should remain with them as a bonding with family associations. It has unique carvings traced back to the time of their great-grandfather depicting the significant events during Charles’ family under slavery which was owned by the Sutter family. Works Cited Bellamy, Sarah. “An American Haint: The Living Legacy of Slavery in the United States”, 16 April, 2012. available Burgan, Michael. The Great Depression: An Interactive History Adventure. Mankato, Minn: Capstone Press, 2011. Print. Pereira, Kim. August Wilson and the African-American Odyssey. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995 Simon, John. A Lesson From Pianos. New York Magazine. New York Media LLC. 1990 Wilson, August. The Piano Lesson. New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Plume, 1990. Print Read More