she could play it and even start a choir.

Later on that night, in scene 3, Boy Willie arrives with Grace, a woman he has just met, but Berniece chases them both away. Lymon then arrives and, after complaining about his luck with women, offers perfume to Berniece, kisses her, and is rebuffed by her.

In scene 4, Boy Willie wakes up Lymon to tell him he has been offered $1,150 for the piano. Together they try, but fail, to move the piano, which elicits the sound of Sutter’s ghost, while Doaker informs Boy Willie that they are not taking the piano anywhere until Berniece comes home. Boy Willie leaves, telling Doaker that he is going to get some rope and wheels and that nobody is going to stop him from taking the piano.

In scene 5, Boy Willie sits attaching casters to a board in preparation for moving the piano while he makes one last defense of his need to make his way in the world with a farm; Berniece challenges him by mentioning her gun. Soon, Avery enters with his Bible, Lymon arrives with the rope, Boy Willie tries to move the piano, Winning Boy comes in and sits down to play the piano, and Grace, who has been waiting for Lymon in his truck outside, tries to get Lymon to leave. Amid all the confusion, Sutter’s ghost appears. Avery begins an exorcism and sprinkles the place with water, while Boy Willie engages in a struggle with the ghost itself. Berniece suddenly sits down at the piano and begins to play with rousing intensity until a calm settles over the house. Boy Willie, realizing Berniece’s triumph, urges her to keep playing and leaves to catch a train. Berniece, who has been enlisting the aid of her ancestors in her song, expresses her gratitude for the peace that has returned to her life.

A play about family inheritance and legacy, The Piano Lesson revolves around a piano that has been in Berniece and Boy Willie’s family for several generations. The play opens with Boy Willie and his friend Lymon driving from Mississippi to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to sell watermelons. Boy Willie has another motive for going to Pittsburgh: He has his mind set on selling the family piano to raise enough money to buy a farm. Boy Willie believes that once he owns land, he can be the master of his own destiny. However, his sister Berniece disagrees; she refuses to sell the piano, although she hesitates to touch it. Avery, a self-anointed preacher and Berniece’s boyfriend, is also interested in the piano. He wants Berniece to give the piano to him so that he can raise money to build his own church. Berniece, however, wants to keep the piano in the family.

Doaker, Berniece and Boy Willie’s uncle, recounts the story behind the piano. It was originally owned by Joel Nolander. Robert Sutter, who owned Berniece and Boy Willie’s great-grandparents as slaves, wanted to buy his wife, Ophelia, an anniversary present. Since he had no money, he traded Berniece and Boy Willie’s great-grandmother and their grandfather for the piano. After a while, Ophelia missed having Berniece and Boy Willie’s great-grandmother around. At Sutter’s request, Berniece and Boy Willie’s great-grandfather, a first-rate woodworker, went to Sutter’s house and carved pictures of his wife and son on the piano. However, he did not stop there; he continued until the piano was covered with pictures of family members. Years later, Boy Charles, Berniece and Boy Willie’s father, started to believe that the piano belonged to his family and that so long as Sutter kept the piano, he had the family. Boy Charles and his friends managed to move the piano out of Sutter’s house and hide it while Sutter was at a picnic. When Sutter found the piano missing, someone set Boy Charles’s house on fire. When a mob found Boy Charles in a railroad boxcar in a train called the Yellow Dog, they set it afire as well. The fire killed everyone in the boxcar, including Berniece and Boy Willie’s father and four hobos. The people who died in the boxcar became known as the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog.

Before Boy Willie and Lymon start for Pittsburgh, James Sutter, Robert Sutter’s grandson, mysteriously falls into a well. Some people suspect it is not an accident, and Berniece starts to feel the presence of Sutter’s ghost in her house. Boy Willie is greatly annoyed by Berniece’s refusal to sell the piano. Acting childishly, he wants to cut the piano in half and sell his half. At Berniece’s request, Avery tries to bless the house, but his blessing fails to get rid of Sutter’s ghost. In panic, Berniece begins playing on the piano, chanting her ancestors’ names for help. Sutter’s ghost almost disappears.

At the end of the play, Berniece and Boy Willie reconcile. However, Boy Willie warns Berniece that if she does not continue to play on the piano, both he and Sutter’s ghost will return.

Wilson’s thematic accentuation of the continuity of history in The Piano Lesson takes on an epic scope that is emphasized in the characters’ names. For example, Berniece is named after the great-grandmother who was traded for the piano, and Boy Willie is named after a great-grandfather named Willie Boy. Doaker and Wining Boy also remind the audience of the bards in Greco-Roman epics, whose responsibilities are to ensure that the past and the present are connected. Both Doaker and Wining Boy are storytellers. Doaker is down to earth and makes judgments mainly on empirical experience. Because of his strong ties to the past, Wining Boy enjoys reliving the past in his stories more than he is interested in keeping up with the present. His sense of humor provides a thematic as well as stylistic contrast to Doaker’s seriousness. Both Doaker’s and Wining Boy’s stories are moving and mesmerizing. They are imbued in the richness, cadence, and rhythm of the African American vernacular tradition. Their stories provide historical information that makes possible fusions of the past and the present and of history and reality.

The epic scope of The Piano Lesson is also circumscribed by the presence of ghosts who are as much engaged in fighting for the possession of the piano as the living African Americans who are struggling to identify their relationship with history. The Piano Lesson is filled with ghost figures that reflect the influence of Magical Realism on Wilson’s writing. Ghosts in the play, such as that of James Sutter, haunt, confuse, scare, and bedevil people to a point at which they begin to question the adequacy of their own sense of history. There are also ghosts with whom Wining Boy and Boy Willie believe they can communicate. Boy Willie believes that people can talk to the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog. He explains to his niece Maretha:They like the wind you can’t see them. But sometimes you be in trouble they might be around to help. They say if you go where the Southern cross the Yellow Dog . . . you go to where them two railroads cross each other . . . and call out their names . . . they say they talk back to you.

The Piano Lesson starts with Doaker’s recounting the history of the piano to Boy Willie and Lyman. It ends with Boy Willie’s describing to Maretha the possibility of communicating spiritually with their ancestors. The continuum of the family history is delineated by legends and stories in which three generations of people find resonance.

Slavery and Reconstruction
The large-scale importation of slaves to America began in the 1690s in Virginia. While slaves had been brought over earlier, it was during this decade that indentured servants—who entered contracts of five to eleven years in exchange for their passage from England or Ireland to America and maintenance during their service—started being increasingly replaced by permanently enslaved laborers. Contrary to popular belief, colonists initially preferred indentured servants over slaves because the latter were a costlier investment. However, after sixty years of migration, there were not enough English, Irish, and Scottish migrants to satisfy the colonists' demand. This set the stage for slavery in America: the abduction of individuals, their transport from Africa to Jamaica, the West Indies, and North America, their forced labor in these colonies, and the inheritance of enslaved status by future generations.

The rhetoric of the American Revolution (1775-1783) was the first to compel Americans to rethink their views on slavery. The Revolution's calls for freedom and equality for all men starkly contrasted with the existence of an enslaved underclass. For a brief period, some southerners and northerners considered emancipating the slaves and repatriating them to Liberia or settling them in unoccupied parts of America, but these plans were soon abandoned.

During the antebellum period (the era preceding the American Civil War), strong opposition to slavery emerged in the North. This opposition was partly in response to abolitionist criticisms and partly due to the growing racism within southern society. Consequently, southern slave-owners and pro-slavery advocates began to publicly offer "scientific" and "philosophical" justifications for slavery.

Over time, the divide between slavery's defenders and opponents widened, though there was significant overlap in misconceptions about blacks among the more conservative abolitionists and their adversaries. The escalating societal tension over slavery culminated in the American Civil War (1861-1865). Key questions arose: Should slavery extend to the newly settled states of Kansas and Missouri? Should it be abolished in the southern states? What labor system would replace it, and could the agrarian South remain economically viable, especially in competition with the more industrialized North? What would become of the emancipated slaves?

While slavery was the primary issue dividing the North and South, Abraham Lincoln's foremost priority was preserving the American union of states. The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, freed slaves in the southern states. In 1865, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, emancipating all remaining slaves.

The North's victory over the South in the Civil War and its commitment to aiding emancipated African Americans in adapting to their new societal roles soon waned amid increasing conciliatory actions and nostalgic feelings for the South. The aspirations of the Reconstruction Era (1865-1876)—including the hope for improved treatment and opportunities for blacks, and the potential for racial integration and reconciliation—were swiftly dashed. Republican presidents began adopting a more conciliatory stance towards southern leaders. By the 1880s and 1890s, southern legislatures had enacted successive "Jim Crow" segregation laws that disenfranchised blacks and rendered true civil rights unattainable.

During and following the Reconstruction, southern blacks wrestled with defining their new societal roles. Although a small but significant free black population in America had historically enjoyed better educational and occupational opportunities than their enslaved counterparts, most former slaves were skilled only in rural labor. Their choices were limited: they could either leave the land to work in urban factories or remain as sharecroppers. Many opted to stay, but in the prosperous years of the 1910s and 1920s, particularly during and after World War I (1914-1919), there was a significant migration of southern blacks to northern cities.

America in the 1930s
The 1930s were marked by a severe economic depression in America and globally. The Great Depression stemmed from Britain and America’s punitive reparations policy following their victory in the First World War, technological advancements that boosted output and profits but rendered many workers redundant, and struggling agricultural, mining, and textile markets. Stock-market speculation only masked the underlying weaknesses eroding America’s economic core. The stock market crash of 1929 did not cause the Depression but was a reaction to and confirmation of existing market and international banking issues.

From 1929 to 1932, unemployment in America surged from roughly 1.5 million to about 15 million. In the early 1930s, favorable weather led to an over-supply of agricultural produce, yet urban populations went hungry. By the mid-1930s, drought and bank foreclosures had slashed farm prices by more than 50%, forcing many tenant farmers off their land. Agricultural laborers, many of whom were black southerners, suffered as severely as factory workers in the cities. Like them, they joined millions of others in bread lines (welfare handouts for those unable to afford food).

Despite the worsening crisis, President Herbert Hoover’s administration remained stoically indifferent, trusting that "market forces" would eventually resolve the issues—a belief that ultimately proved incorrect. In March 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president. He immediately began implementing his "New Deal" reform plan, which included relief for the unemployed, fiscal reform, and measures to stimulate economic recovery.

Roosevelt’s electoral success was partly due to African Americans shifting their support from the Republicans—the party of Abraham Lincoln, which they had traditionally backed—to Roosevelt’s Democratic Party. Both Roosevelt’s New Deal and this significant change in African American political allegiance reshaped twentieth-century American politics. In the following decades, the fight for African-American civil rights would become closely intertwined with the Democratic Party's politics.

Naturalism
Naturalism is frequently mistaken for realism, as both styles aim to depict "real life." However, significant differences exist between them. Naturalist authors were influenced by scientific and evolutionary theories concerning human behavior and social relationships. A key theme in Naturalist literature is the individual's struggle to adapt to a frequently hostile environment. In fact, Naturalist writers often emphasize their characters' surroundings to such a degree that it becomes a vital part of their stories. Additionally, their protagonists typically come from a less privileged class than their middle-class audience, and their struggles to survive and succeed against adversities provide the authors a platform for strong social commentary.

Wilson is regarded as a quintessential Naturalist playwright. Although the play's conflict begins with Boy Willie's sudden arrival, the drama unfolds amid the Charles family's daily routines. Doaker specifies the type of "ham hocks" he wants Berniece to purchase and shares his plans to cook "cornbread and... turnip greens" with her and the audience. When Avery arrives to propose to Berniece, she is preoccupied with heating water for her evening bath. The climactic argument between Berniece and Boy Willie occurs while Berniece is combing her daughter's hair. These details are fundamental to Naturalism: they highlight the characters' everyday experiences while enhancing the authenticity of the character portrayals.

Similar to many American Naturalist plays, such as Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, the action in The Piano Lesson unfolds over a short period—from Thursday morning to Friday evening. This brief time span heightens the drama of the unfolding events, while the detailed depictions offer the audience an extraordinarily personal view of the family's life. The succinct time frame stands in stark contrast to the extensive history of the family; this juxtaposition underscores the Charles family's challenges in relating to and recounting their history. During the time when their ancestors were illiterate slaves, they relied on storytelling, music, and art rather than writing to remember and narrate their joys and sorrows.

The African Tradition: Ancestor Worship and Storytelling
In the play’s final scene, Wilson portrays Berniece’s choice to play the piano as a “rustling of wind blowing across two continents.” The playwright intertwines two distinct cultural traditions—the African and the American—suggesting that this blend is crucial to African-American identity. Ancestor worship is a fundamental aspect of African religious practice, where the spirits of ancestors are believed to have the power to influence people’s lives, bringing either good or bad events based on their benevolence or malevolence. Although ancestor worship is rooted in respect and honor for the deceased, it also serves to keep the spirits benevolent and protective. Neglecting these spirits can lead to the loss of their protection and possibly provoke their anger.

The piano serves as the Charles family’s totem, capturing the essence of Berniece and Boy Willie’s ancestors and acting as a tangible link between the past and present. The spirits of their ancestors are embodied within the piano, which is why Berniece’s mother, Mama Ola, would polish it, pray over it, and urge her daughter to play it. By keeping the piano clean and playing it, Mama Ola maintained her connection with her ancestors.

Following her mother’s death, Berniece refuses to play the piano because she “don’t want to wake them spirits.” As a result, “they never be walking around in this house.” However, her refusal to honor the piano as her mother did signifies a neglect of her African heritage and a disrespect of her family history. Berniece eventually realizes that her neglect has allowed Sutter’s ghost to torment the Charles family. When she finally plays the piano and calls upon her ancestors’ spirits, she reaffirms the importance of upholding African cultural practices and honoring the legacy of slavery.

Another significant African cultural practice depicted in The Piano Lesson is storytelling. While storytelling is a cross-cultural tradition, it holds particular importance for African Americans, who were often denied formal education and literacy skills even after Emancipation. Slaves created or adapted songs and relied on communal storytelling to preserve their heritage and history. Two scenes in the play especially highlight the role of African-American storytelling.

Avery’s dream, which he recounts in Act One, scene one, highlights the significance of the Book of Revelations and the scriptural promise of redemption in African-American Christianity. His narration serves as a testament to his conversion experience and mirrors the speech patterns of evangelical preachers. The dream draws inspiration from the New Testament story of Christ’s birth and Old Testament tales of prophets being called and chosen by God. However, Avery reinterprets these traditions within an African-American framework: the journey starts in a "railway yard," the three wise men are depicted as "three hobos" (reminiscent of the murdered hobos on the Yellow Dog), and he places strong emphasis on the ecstatic elements of the experience.

In the subsequent scene, an even more pivotal story is narrated by Doaker, the de facto patriarch of the Charles family. Doaker employs the call and response structure common to African ritual practice and evangelical preaching: “‘I’m talking to the man... let me talk to the man... Now... am I telling it right, Wining Boy?’ ‘You telling it.’” He also uses rhythm effectively by pausing throughout his story and repeating certain phrases to heighten its drama. Doaker’s tale forms the heart of the play: it underscores the piano's significance and portrays him as the family member who continues to honor the ancestors’ spirits by recounting their stories.

Several other characters share their personal stories throughout the play, a practice that underscores Wilson’s belief in the importance of the oral tradition to African-American identity. Storytelling keeps the past alive in the present by establishing an individual’s connection to their personal and cultural history. The survival of this practice across generations is crucial: in the final scene, Boy Willie begins to teach Maretha her family stories. He insists that understanding and celebrating her history will significantly boost her self-esteem: she "wouldn't have no problem in life. She could walk around here with her head held high... She [would] know where she at in the world."

1936: President Franklin D. Roosevelt wins a second term by a landslide, securing every state except Virginia and Maine. Congress is dominated by Democrats, holding 80% of the seats. Roosevelt’s historic victory is significantly supported by a major shift in the black voting population from Republicans to Democrats.
1987: Ronald Reagan is in his second term after being reelected in 1984 by the largest Republican landslide in U.S. history, winning forty-nine states. However, in his seventh year, he faces intense criticism for his role in the Iran-Contra Affair and his veto of the Clean Water Act.

Today: President Bill Clinton was reelected in November 1996 with 49% of the vote, making him the first Democrat since Roosevelt to secure a second term. Nonetheless, his second term is overshadowed by the Whitewater investigation and the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

1936: Eight million people are unemployed, and the economy is in a severe recession. Roosevelt’s New Deal provides aid to the unemployed and aims to stimulate the economy through public works programs and support for farmers.

1987: October 19 is known as ‘‘Black Monday’’ on Wall Street, with a dramatic drop in share prices exceeding 20%. This crash is the worst in the history of the New York Stock Exchange, with the decline nearly double that of the 1929 crash.

Today: Defying predictions, the American economy continues to thrive. The brief impact of the Japanese and Mexican market collapses on the New York Stock Exchange is quickly overcome. The Dow Jones Index surpassed the 10,000 mark for the first time in January 1999, the bull market is growing, and the unemployment rate is at a forty-year low.

1936: Eugene O’Neill becomes the first American playwright to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1987: August Wilson becomes the first African-American playwright to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with his play "Fences." In the same year, African-American poet Rita Dove wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection "Thomas and Beulah."

Today: African-American writers continue to achieve national and international recognition. Novelist Toni Morrison became the first African American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994, and August Wilson won his second Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1990.

Sources
Barnes, Clive. "Piano Lesson Hits All the Right Keys" in the New York Post, April 17, 1990.

Brustein, Robert. "The Lesson of The Piano Lesson" in the New Republic, Vol. 202, no. 21, May 21, 1990, pp. 28-30.

Henry, William A., III. "A Ghostly Past, in Ragtime" in Time, Vol. 133, no. 5, January 30, 1989, p. 69.

Hill, Holly, K. A. Berney, and N. G. Templeton, editors. Contemporary American Dramatists, St. James Press, 1994.

Morales, Michael. "Ghosts on the Piano: August Wilson and the Representation of Black American History" in May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson, edited by Alan Nadel, University of Iowa Press, 1994, pp. 105-15.

Rich, Frank. "A Family Confronts Its History in August Wilson’s Piano Lesson" in the New York Times, April 17, 1990, p. C13.

Simon, John. "A Lesson from Pianos" in New York, Vol. 23, no. 18, May 7, 1990, pp. 82-83.

Further Reading
Genovese, Eugene D. Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, [New York], 1974. Genovese’s comprehensive examination of slave culture serves as an essential resource for in-depth research. It provides detailed context for the culture in which Wilson’s characters live in the 1930s.

Honey, Maureen. Shadowed Dreams: Women’s Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, 1989. This notable collection of women’s poetry from the Harlem Renaissance includes an accessible introduction to the era.

Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia, [New York], 1975. This pioneering scholarly work outlines the economic foundations of slavery in colonial Virginia and its link to the increasing equality among white citizens.

Nadel, Alan, editor. May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on August Wilson, University of Iowa Press, 1994. This compilation of essays on Wilson’s major plays is a valuable source for secondary criticism on the playwright.

Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion: The ‘‘Invisible Institution’’ in the Ante-bellum South, 1979. Raboteau utilizes a diverse range of sources for his compelling exploration of slave religion. His study also includes insightful discussion of slave religion in other colonies, such as the West Indies, and African religious practices.

Savran, David. In Their Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights, Theatre Communications Group, 1988, pp. 288-306. Savran features an informative interview with Wilson in this collection, recorded in New York shortly after the completion of The Piano Lesson.