Berniece
Berniece, one of the protagonists, is Doaker’s niece and lives with him in Pittsburgh, having moved there from Mississippi a few years ago. She is 35 years old and has an 11-year-old daughter, Maretha…
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Boy Willie
Boy Willie, Berniece’s brother and another of the play’s protagonists, is 30 years old. He is boyish, impulsive, talkative, and can behave a bit crudely. He comes across as optimistic and a bit naïve…
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Doaker Charles
Doaker lives in the first-floor apartment of a Pittsburgh house he shares with his niece Berniece and her daughter Maretha. Doaker is 47 years old and has worked for the railroad for 27 years…
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Lymon Jackson
Lymon is 29 years old. He is Boy Willie’s good friend and has partnered with him in various work ventures. Lymon doesn’t talk very much, but when he does, he is disarmingly straightforward. Lymon…
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Wining Boy
Wining Boy is Doaker’s 56-year-old brother. Once a successful musician, he worked with Doaker on the railroad for a time and nowadays spends much of his time drinking and gambling. His personal style is…
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Get the entire The Piano Lesson LitChart as a printable PDF.
Sutter (Sutter’s Ghost)
Sutter owned the land in Marlin County, Mississippi, that previous generations of Boy Willie’s family worked while enslaved by the Sutters. Sutter was a large man, about 340 pounds. Before the beginning of the…
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Avery Brown
Avery Brown is a 38-year-old man who’s dating Berniece. Avery is ambitious and honest and dresses well. He followed Berniece to Pittsburgh from Mississippi two years ago in hopes of persuading her to marry…
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Cleotha Holman
Cleotha, who died recently at 46, was Wining Boy’s ex-wife. At the time of Cleotha’s death in Kansas City, Wining Boy was living elsewhere and hadn’t known she was sick. They first met when…
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Mama Ola
Mama Ola was Berniece’s and Boy Willie’s mother. She died over seven years ago. She constantly polished the piano with her tears and often begged Berniece to play for her in memory of…
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Boy Charles
Boy Charles was Berniece’s and Boy Willie’s father, Wining Boy’s and Doaker Charles’s eldest brother, and Mama Ola’s husband. Boy Charles was obsessed with the Sutter piano his whole life…
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Ophelia Sutter
Ophelia was Robert Sutter’s wife, for whom the piano was a gift. She later pined for the slaves (Mama Berniece and Papa Boy Charles) whom Robert traded in exchange for the piano…
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Jim Stovall
Jim Stovall lives in Mississippi and is offered Sutter’s land for a lower price than the price quoted to Boy Willie. It’s not otherwise specified who Stovall is or what he does, but a…
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Minor Characters
Maretha
Maretha is Berniece’s 11-year-old daughter. She is a shy, obedient girl. Maretha is getting extra schooling in hopes of becoming a schoolteacher. Berniece devotes most of her energy to raising Maretha well, hoping that her daughter will have opportunities that she herself never had.
Crawley
Crawley was Berniece’s first husband. He died about three years ago, shot by the sheriff while helping Boy Willie and Lymon haul some wood they’d been hoarding. Though little is said about Crawley, it’s suggested that he was an impulsive but loyal man. Berniece mourns him to this day.
Grace
Grace is a young woman whom Boy Willie meets and brings back to Berniece’s house for a romantic night. She and Lymon later end up together.
Mama Berniece
Mama Berniece was Berniece’s and Boy Willie’s great-grandmother. Along with her son, Papa Boy Charles, she was traded to Joel Nolander in exchange for Ophelia Sutter’s piano. Mama Berniece’s spirit is among those called upon by Berniece for help.
Papa Boy Willie
Papa Boy Willie was Berniece’s and Boy Willie’s great-grandmother, husband of Mama Berniece, and father of Papa Boy Charles. A talented woodworker, Papa Boy Willie carved his wife’s and son’s images onto Ophelia Sutter’s piano after being forcibly separated from his loved ones.
Papa Boy Charles
Papa Boy Charles was Berniece’s and Boy Willie’s grandfather, Mama Berniece’s and Papa Boy Willie’s son. Along with his mother, Mama Berniece, he was traded to Joel Nolander in exchange for Ophelia Sutter’s piano.
Robert Sutter
Robert Sutter was Sutter’s grandfather. He was the ancestor who owned the Charles family as slaves and agreed to trade Mama Berniece and Papa Boy Charles for the piano as a gift for his wife, Ophelia.
Coreen
Coreen is Doaker’s ex-wife who now lives in New York. Doaker claims that he never thinks about her anymore.
