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The Past In The Piano Lesson By August Wilson

648 Words3 Pages

The past can have a high impact on someone’s life whether it’s positive or negative. In The Piano Lesson by August Wilson, the character Berniece has an unhealthy relationship with her family’s past and the legacy of slavery. Due to her ignoring it, the past haunts her. In the end, she learns that you must accept and honor the past to find peace with it.

Bernience owns a piano which holds intense value to her family and their past. Berniece's brother, Boy Willie, wants to profit off of the piano and sell it to buy the land of Sutter who recently passed away. Berniece disagrees with this incentive and believes the piano should be preserved to preserve the history it withholds. Throughout the play, Boy Willie tries to convince Berniece that it would make …show more content…

During this Berniece claims there is a ghost in the house identified to be Sutter’s ghost and that it is searching for Boy Willie. Sutter is the man whose grandfather owned the ancestors of Berniece and Boy Willie. In the past, the piano was a gift to the grandfather of Sutter’s wife for their anniversary. Though to obtain the piano Sutter had to trade the ancestors of Berniece and Boy Willie. As time passed, though his wife cherished the piano she missed the slaves/ancestors who were traded. Sutter decided to ask Willie Boy, an ancestor of Berniece and Boy Willie, to carve the faces of the slaves who were traded. Willie Boy did so but also decided to carve all of the ancestors along with the family history tied to them. After slavery had passed, Boy Charles, the father of Berniece and Boy Willie, decided to steal the piano from Sutter considering its ties to the family. Though Charles was successful in obtaining the piano, when Boy Charles fled on the Yellow Dog, the lynchers who set his house

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