August Wilsons the Piano Lesson - Research Paper Example

August Wilson’s the Piano Lesson Introduction August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson is a powerful drama questioning how one could assume a sense of self by not accepting their past. Wilson explores the dilemma faced by two related yet opposing siblings who are in quest to sell off or keep an ancestral piano. The rationale assumed by the main protagonists and other supporting narratives in the play make for an interesting account of dilemmas faced by freed slaves on the American continent. Central to the play is the piano, owned jointly by the protagonists as ancestral legacy, yet disputed in terms of its disposal. In Wilson’s own view, this play asks and answers a multitude of possibilities through which an individual may deny his own past so as to acquire a greater sense of being[Bry06]. While Boy Willie wishes to dispose the piano as a means of acquiring land, his sister, Berenice, wants to retain the piano as a reminder of their torturous past. In addition, other critics have seen Wilson’s play as a pragmatic literary device to investigate one’s legacy and to decide how it could be put to the best use [Sha96]. Slavery and the sale of families Wilson’s The Piano Lesson is set in the early twenty first century but it still espouses the trauma left behind by the sale of slave families, which indicates how deeply this phenomenon has scarred African American culture. The piano, which is central to the play, symbolizes the sale of slave families through the carved legs of the piano which reminds the Charles household of relatives lost to the slave trade. The forced breakdown and displacement of slave families has been documented and researched at length and there is no second opinion to the trauma induced by this phenomenon[Kol93]. It has been argued that the slave trade and its impact on African American culture has been central to the cultural existence by serving as a traumatic event for both enslaved and free African Americans [Ber03]. Reflections on the Jim Crow South The struggle between Boy Willie and Berenice is an essential symptom of the African American condition at the turn of the twenty first century. Even though African Americans had been liberated but they had little resources with which they could venture into private entrepreneurship. The status of African Americans remained at best of cheap labor. This concept was far more prevalent in the South than in the North. Wilson has dramatized these competing views beautifully in the divergent views of Boy Willie and Lymon – both men are looking for untethered freedom but in their own methods. While Lymon plans to save up some money and escape to the forgiving North, Boy Willie plans to sell the piano and use the money to buy up some land of his own for tilling[Wil07]. The divergent views of these characters in the play signify the personal chaos and trauma prevalent in African American households of the era. Railroads The American South was largely agricultural in outlook and exhibited few signs of industrialization such as the railroads. Arguably, the railroads were far more developed in the North than in the South. In addition, the railroad was one of the few methods which connected the largely rural South to the urbanized North, where black people were treated better off. In essence, the railroad was available in the South for the transportation of agricultural produce to the factories in the North. For the African American slave, the railroad provided a chance at securing freedom. There are numerous documented incidents where slaves stole onto boxcars and ran off to the North to secure their freedom[Deb13]. However, this was not an option available to all enslaved black people. Wilson provides an elusive reference to the railroad by indicating that Boy Willie’s father and three other slaves were burnt to death on a railroad boxcar, indicating that the railroad was a chance but not a guarantee at freedom. Much like the piano, the death of Boy Willie’s father and three other slaves is a reminder of a grim past that Boy Willie wishes to bypass. Sharecropping Sharecropping remained a widely practiced system of virtually enslaving hundreds of thousands of otherwise liberated African American slaves and their generations. The Emancipation Declaration did provide the African American with freedom on a piece of paper but it failed to provide the social and economic conditions necessary to sustain such freedoms in the real sense. Generations of African Americans toiled the lands of their forefather’s masters as tenants with entitlement to meagre wages as the only measure of compensation[Sha13]. The South retained its agricultural outlook even after the American Civil War, which was fed largely by the toils of the liberated African American in the fields. Even after generations of work in the fields, the African American did not have enough resources to own his own piece of land. The resulting frustration haunted generations of African Americans and fuelled their attempts at owning something of their own. Boy Willie’s disposition to sell the piano and own some land is a reflection of this fact in the play. Worth or value of heritage / heritage and its meaning The Piano Lesson is symbolically tied to the ancestral piano as an overt indication of heritage and legacy but there are other symbols that connect to a broader African American past. The author’s continuous use of ghosts, akin to spirits in African religions, is another major symbol of connecting the disconnected African American present to its long lost African roots. In a similar manner, the use of music, and the overwhelming emphasis of a piano as a musical instrument indicates connections to an African past where music served as a central tenant to social existence. The piano as a symbol in Wilson’s play is indicative of a unique transformation of lineage and heritage. Boy Willie’s father and his sister Berenice have embraced the piano as a metamorphic method of owning their past in Africa through a more contemporary musical instrument. The piano in essence is capable of producing sound, much like other African musical instruments, but the piano is still an American symbol. In doing so, some members of the Charles household have seamlessly integrated elements of their past into their present to arrive at a peace with themselves. The real predicament is faced by Boy Willie who finds it hard to come to terms with such a metamorphosis since it requires greater intellectual exertion than is afforded to him by the continuous toil in the fields. At the end of the drama, Boy Willie realizes that the spirits of his ancestors are trying to teach him how to blend his well-conditioned past with his challenging present to produce a stronger human being [Wil07]. Role of music in Black culture Music has been a central tenant of African culture and this phenomenon allowed the formation of close bonds between music and African American culture. The slaves held by masters were afforded little but a chance at Sunday church service to develop their intellectual expertise in music. Historically, African American music has had its own place in American society, right from after the Emancipation to the modern day[Eil97]. Social sub-culture music movements such as the jazz and today’s hip hop are signs that the African American sees and performs his music differently from the white man. Central to both jazz and hip hop is a tale of struggles and vacillations, which is exhibited in jazz’s strongly alternating compositions and through rap lyrics in hip hop. Wilson’ play has recognized the importance of music to African American culture and as explained above, has utilized the piano as a symbol of seamless integration of past and present to forge a stronger, more stable and socially relevant human being. Berenice’s calmness contrasted to Boy Willie’s unnerving struggle reveals what the absence of music means to African American culture and to African Americans at large. Definitions of masculinity / manliness Wilson’s play presents a resounding struggle for individual recognition and the desire to achieve something through a personal definition of manliness in the lives of both Boy Willie and Lymon. As the play progresses, Lymon is seen exhibiting a softer side of his persona to Berenice while Boy Willie sticks to his ideals of buying land for himself in order to recognize his manliness on a personal scale. The inherent struggle espoused in the self of Boy Willie is apparent in the play since he is trying to fight back the oppression imposed on him by society at large. The suppression of Boy Willie’s existence stands in contrast to his desire to sprout as an individual by exerting his manliness. However, as the play progresses, Boy Willie realizes towards the end that manliness is not necessarily an overt exertion but more about finding peace within and with one’s heritage [Jon00]. Works Cited Bry06: , (Bryer and Hartig 25), Sha96: , (Shannon 146), Kol93: , (Kolchin 96), Ber03: , (Berlin 161-162), Wil07: , (Wilson Act I, Scene II), Deb13: , (White, Bay and Martin 287), Sha13: , (Monteith 94), Wil07: , (Wilson Act II, Scene V), Eil97: , (Southern 221-222), Jon00: , (Little), Read More