August Wilson's The Piano Lesson and the Limits of Law

Abstract

August Wilson's The Piano Lesson features a debate between an African American brother and sister over the ownership of a richly symbolic piano, a family heirloom that represents the Charles family's slave heritage and its endurance through Reconstruction. Ownership questions like the one presented in The Piano Lesson can usually be resolved in the courts, but Wilson's play suggests that the law might be unable to resolve property disputes so problematically entangled with the legacy of slavery. Wilson offers, instead, a non-legal resolution to the piano debate presented in his play. August Wilson's The Piano Lesson and the Limits of Law I. Introduction At the heart of The Piano Lesson, August Wilson's 1990 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, is a debate between an African-American brother and sister over the rightful ownership of a piece of property. The piano sitting in Berniece's home in Pittsburgh in 1936 has been held by the Charles family, or by the white Sutter family, who once owned the Charleses, since 1856, when Robert Sutter, a Mississippi plantation owner, traded two Charles family slaves, Mama Berniece and her nine-year-old son Walter, for the piano as an anniversary present for his wife Ophelia. Soon, however, Ophelia missed the two departed slaves and felt guilty about their sale, perhaps because the transaction broke up a functioning slave family. To assuage Ophelia's guilt, a remaining Sutter slave, Papa Boy Willie, Mama Berniece's husband and a skilled wood sculptor, carved the images of his wife and his son into the frame of the piano. Papa Boy Willie continued to carve into the piano important events from his family's history-his marriage, his mother's funeral, the birth of his son, the sale of his wife and son. The piano stayed in possession of the Sutter family after emancipation; but on July 4, 1911, Boy Charles, the grandson of the wood carver and Berniece's father, stole the piano from the Sutters. When Robert Sutter's son discovered the theft, he killed Boy Charles by setting fire to a yellow train boxcar in which Boy Charles was hiding. Berniece took the piano with her when she migrated north from Mississippi in 1933. A widow, Berniece lives in Pittsburgh with her daughter Maretha and her Uncle Doaker. The debate between Berniece and her older brother Boy Willie is over the sale of the piano. Boy Willie and his friend Lymon have traveled to Pittsburgh from Mississippi with a

Motivations of Safety Needs in Wilson’s The Piano Lesson

“…Other research by Bryant [12] and John [13] focused on the history of the black people in The Piano Lesson. Tackach [14] and Macklin [15] uncovered the relationship between low, power, and race. While Abbotson [16] uncovered August Wilson's teaching through The Piano Lesson.…”