The Piano Lesson Essay: Preserving Legacy and Establishing Common Ground
As a wise, though unknown, author once eloquently said, “Sometimes you just have to put that chapter of life in the past. Don’t close the book. Just turn the page.” In other words, it is necessary to move on from the past but not to completely neglect its influence. American author and pastor, Rick Warren, expressed a somewhat similar idea when he said, “We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” A person must realize the influence of the past without letting it control his/her life. In his play, The Piano Lesson, August Wilson explores finding a common ground between these two ideas. He shows his characters starting a new chapter in their life during The Great Migration but struggling with completely neglecting the book or letting the events of the previous chapters control their actions during their current one. Through the legacy the piano symbolizes and the arguments over selling the piano, Wilson teaches readers that in order to fully move on, one must strike a balance between completely letting go of one’s past and letting one’s past control one’s life.
The Piano symbolizes the Charles’ family heritage and the hardships they endured as African Americans in the south. As Doaker tells the story behind the piano, he explains, “Boy Charles used to talk about that piano all the time…Say it was the story of our whole family and as long as Sutter had it . . . he had us. Say we was still in slavery” (Wilson 44). The piano contains the doleful history of the Charles family being sold away and Willie Boy, Doaker’s great grandfather, carving the faces of all his family members into the piano in an attempt to immortalize their legacy. Boy Charles felt as if without the piano they would “still” be in slavery because if the family doesn’t claim the history behind the piano then Sutter “still” owns that legacy, and since every man is a product of his past, he would,...