The most important historical symbol in the play is the family piano. It’s a unique piano, not only for its beautiful and well-maintained quality, but for the carvings of family members engraved on it. The piano came into the family’s life back in the days of slavery (only a generation removed from most of the characters). Boy Willie’s and Berniece’s grandmother and their father, Boy Charles, were traded by the Sutter family in exchange for the piano; their grandfather Boy Willie, a woodworker, carved images in remembrance of his wife and son on the piano. Years later, Boy Charles and his brothers stole the piano from the Sutters, and Boy Charles was killed in retaliation. Though Berniece still owns the piano, she only associates it with the family’s past pain and grief and will neither play it herself nor tell her daughter Maretha its history. Through Berniece’s conflicted attitudes toward the piano, Wilson suggests that history must not be ignored but faced directly—something that demands both active engagement with past pain and celebration of the good—for the sake of a better future.
The piano represents sorrow in the family’s past and, by extension, holding onto the piano is a way of characters symbolically clinging to their past hurts. Berniece and Boy Willie’s father, Boy Charles, talked about the Sutter piano all his life. Boy Charles’s brother Doaker explains that Boy Charles would “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.” So one day, Doaker and Wining Boy stole the piano. When the current Sutter patriarch found out, he had Boy Charles tracked down and burned to death. As Doaker concludes the story, “Now, that’s how all that got started and that why we say Berniece ain’t gonna sell that piano. Cause her daddy died over it.” The reason Berniece’s father died over the piano, though, is because the brothers believed they had to reclaim the piano as a demonstration of their freedom from the Sutters and their ownership of their family story. When Boy Willie argues that their father would have understood the value of selling the piano in order to buy and farm his own land, Berniece doubles down, appealing to family history: “Mama Ola polished this piano with her tears for seventeen years. For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled. Then she rubbed the blood in […] Seventeen years’ worth of cold nights and an empty bed. For what? For a piano? For a piece of wood?” Berniece’s refusal to give up the piano is tied to the way she carries on her mother’s grief over her father; it doesn’t occupy a positive role in her life.
Though Berniece won’t let Boy Willie remove the piano because of its sorrowful associations, she also won’t allow the piano to take on a positive role in the family’s life. Berniece refuses to play the piano because she doesn’t want to awaken the ghosts of her family: her mother used to tell her that “when I played it she could hear my daddy talking to her. I used to think them pictures [on the piano] came alive and walked through the house. Sometime late at night I could hear my mama talking to them. I said that wasn’t gonna happen to me. I don’t play that piano cause I don’t want to wake them spirits.” Because of this, Berniece has also refused to tell her daughter Maretha the family history: “She don’t have to carry all of that with her. She got a chance I didn’t have. I ain’t gonna burden her with that piano.” Because Berniece only associates the piano with grief, she tries to protect Maretha from its past, believing this will help Maretha have a better future. Boy Willie tells Berniece that instead of hiding the piano’s history from Maretha, she should mark the day it came into their family with an annual celebration: “Invite everybody! Mark that day down with a special meaning. That way she know where she at in the world. You got her going out here thinking she wrong in the world. Like there ain’t no part of it belong to her.” Ironically, though Boy Willie himself doesn’t attach much sentimental value to the piano, he sees that Berniece doesn’t fully understand the piano’s historical value, either—that is, its ability to give the family a sense of positive identity and pride that will sustain them in the future.
Berniece, in other words, is caught between her stubborn attachment to the piano and her refusal to fully own the history to which the piano bears witness. In the final scene, Berniece finally plays the piano while calling upon her relatives’ spirits for help. This conclusion suggests that Berniece has finally come to terms with her grief while also accepting the piano’s positive role in the family’s past and future.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Grief, Hope, and History ThemeTracker
Grief, Hope, and History Quotes in The Piano Lesson
BOY WILLIE: Sutter’s brother selling the land. He say he gonna sell it to me. That’s why I come up here. I got one part of it. Sell them watermelons and get me another part. Get Berniece to sell that piano and I’ll have the third part.
DOAKER: Berniece ain’t gonna sell that piano.
BOY WILLIE: I’m gonna talk to her. When she see I got a chance to get Sutter’s land she’ll come around.
DOAKER: You can put that thought out your mind. Berniece ain’t gonna sell that piano.
DOAKER: You know she won’t touch that piano. I ain’t never known her to touch it since Mama Ola died. That’s over seven years now. She say it got blood on it. She got Maretha playing on it though. Say Maretha can go on and do everything she can’t do. Got her in an extra school down at the Irene Kaufman Settlement House. She want Maretha to grow up and be a schoolteacher. Say she good enough she can teach on the piano.
That’s why I come up here. Sell them watermelons. Get Berniece to sell that piano. Put them two parts with the part I done saved. Walk in there. Tip my hat. Lay my money down on the table. Get my deed and walk on out. This time I get to keep all the cotton. Hire me some men to work it for me. Gin my cotton. Get my seed. And I’ll see you again next year. Might even plant some tobacco or some oats.
Boy Charles used to talk about that piano all the time. He never could get it off his mind. […] He be talking about taking it out of Sutter’s house. 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. Me and Wining Boy tried to talk him out of it but it wouldn’t do any good. Soon as he quiet down about it he’d start up again. We seen where he wasn’t gonna get it off his mind…so, on the Fourth of July, 1911…when Sutter was at the picnic what the county give every year…me and Wining Boy went on down there with him and took that piano out of Sutter’s house.
BOY WILLIE: All that’s in the past. If my daddy had seen where he could have traded that piano in for some land of his own, it wouldn’t be sitting up here now. He spent his whole life farming on somebody else’s land. I ain’t gonna do that. See, he couldn’t do no better. When he come along he ain’t had nothing he could build on. His daddy ain’t had nothing to give him. The only thing my daddy had to give me was that piano. And he died over giving me that. I ain’t gonna let it sit up there and rot without trying to do something with it.
Mama Ola polished this piano with her tears for seventeen years. For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled. Then she rubbed the blood in…mixed it up with the rest of the blood on it. Every day that God breathed life into her body she rubbed and cleaned and polished and prayed over it. “Play something for me, Berniece. Play something for me, Berniece.” […] You always talking about your daddy but you ain’t never stopped to look at what his foolishness cost your mama. Seventeen years’ worth of cold nights and an empty bed. For what?
I was only playing it for her. When my daddy died seem like all her life went into that piano. She used to have me playing on it […] say when I played it she could hear my daddy talking to her. I used to think them pictures came alive and walked through the house. Sometime late at night I could hear my mama talking to them. I said that wasn’t gonna happen to me. I don’t play that piano cause I don’t want to wake them spirits. They never be walking around in this house.
AVERY: You got to put all of that behind you, Berniece. That’s the same thing like Crawley. Everybody got stones in their passway. You got to step over them or walk around them. You picking them up and carrying them with you. All you got to do is set them down by the side of the road. You ain’t got to carry them with you. You can walk over there right now and play that piano. You can walk over there right now and God will walk over there with you. […] You can walk over here right now and make it into a celebration.
You ought to mark down on the calendar the day that Papa Boy Charles brought that piano into the house. You ought to mark that day down and draw a circle around it . . . and every year when it come up throw a party. Have a celebration. If you did that she wouldn’t have no problem in life. She could walk around here with her head held high. […] You got her going out here thinking she wrong in the world. Like there ain’t no part of it belong to her.
AVERY: Berniece, I can’t do it.
(There are more sounds heard from upstairs. DOAKER and WINING BOY stare at one another in stunned disbelief. It is in this moment, from somewhere old, that BERNIECE realizes what she must do. She crosses to the piano. She begins to play. The song is found piece by piece. It is an old urge to song that is both a commandment and a plea. With each repetition it gains in strength. It is intended as an exorcism and a dressing for battle[.])
