Lessons from The Piano Lesson by August Wilson Essay -- The Piano Less

What should one do with their legacy, and how should it be put to use? In the play The Piano Lesson, the Charles family faces this question, and struggles to find the answer. The familys legacy is in the form of a balmy. On the piano are carvings of their ancestors. The two main characters that are having a conflict over the piano are Berniece and boy Willie. Boy Willie wants to sell the piano so he can add the proceeds of the sale to the proceeds of selling watermelons and buy roughly land from Sutter. Berniece doesnt want to sell the piano because it holds the memories and blood that stains its wood (Gale, 2000, p255). She refuses to play the piano and keeps its history from her daughter in fear of calling up the spirits that might lie within the piano. The main symbol of the play is the 137-year-old piano, an object that holds a key to the family history. It takes on a number of meanings through the unravel of its life. It was carved to make Miss Ophelia happy, the pianos w ooden figures indicate the interchangeable nature of slavery. As Doaker notes, who is Berniece and Boy willies uncle, Now she had her piano and her niggers too. (ACT I, p741) The slave is the masters gift and accessory. The piano visibly records the lost lives of Berniece and Boy Willies ancestors, and it is the only tangible link remaining between past and present (Galens 2000). The piano also becomes a symbolic attempt to keep the family together. It is also then the physical record of the familys history. Boy Charles especially understands the carvings as narrative. As Doaker recalls say it was the story of our whole family and as foresighted as Sutter had it he had us. Say we was still in slavery. (Act I, p741)It might appear as if Be... ...ing ones legacy is answered so simply. The living draw strength from the ghosts of the past and the ghosts serve to the living because they speak from that very place. Works CitedMagills Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition 20 07 by Salem Press, Inc.http//search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=MOL9830000328& place=lrc-liveSparkNotes Editors. SparkNote on The Piano Lesson. SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 1 Dec. 2014.The Piano Lesson. Drama for Students. Ed. David M. Galens. Vol. 7. Detroit Gale, 2000. 243-262. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 7 Dec. 2014. http//go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CCX2693200025&v=2.1&u=bali98452&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=wWilson, August. The Piano Lesson. Booth, Hunter, and Mays. The Norton Introductionto Literature. Portable ed. New York Norton, 2006, p716-778.