man of god, Avery is a sort of foil to her. The search of self assumes the colour of religion in which salvation is attained by the achievement of black self-identity. Berniece and not Avery becomes the priest of this religion of the self.
The play basically revolves around Boy Willie’s attempts at selling a piano, which his sister Berniece is trying to preserve. Boy Willie has a sense of future, which he is trying to realize. He is dreaming about working on land that belongs to him. He has been offered that piece of land upon which his forefathers had worked as slaves. They had farmed that land for the white master Sutter, who is dead now. Since they were slaves they had no right to the land. Boy Willie has to collect money if he wants to buy that land. He has saved one third of the money, he will have two thirds of it when he sells his watermelons. The last portion of the money has to be raised. For this purpose, Boy Willie wants to sell the piano, which his father stole from Sutter. This piano itself has a long history. It is a testimonial to the hardships through which Boy Willie’s family went through. There are carved figures on the piano. The whole history of the family is carved onto the piano. In this way the piano not only stands as an evidence of the hardships of a particular family of slaves but it also stands for the whole of the black American experience. It becomes a symbol of the sufferings and humiliations of the black Americans in the days of slavery. The piano as symbolic of the past becomes a source of conflict between Boy Willie and his sister Berniece. She does not want to sell the piano because she has emotional associations with it. She does not want to part with the piano. She has not been using it herself because she felt that her mother had wept over this piano with and asked her to play it. Since her mother is dead therefore Berniece does not play the piano anymore. Because of this association the piano has become an emotionally...