Plot Summary Of The Play 'The Piano Lesson'

The Piano Lesson Plot Line
We recently read the play The Piano Lesson and encountered an interesting plot line. The exposition of the story starts when Boy Willie shows up unexpectedly at his sister’s house. As the story progresses, we encounter the rising action. The rising action is when Boy Willie informs Berniece that he is selling their mother’s piano. The climax starts in a couple different places: when Sutter appears, and when Berniece plays the piano. The falling action and resolution happen when Berniece is thanking God for taking Sutter’s ghost away and Boy Willie decides to leave the piano alone. In the exposition of the book Boy Willie shows up to his sister’s house early in the morning. Boy Willie and his friend Lymon came
After Boy Willie fights Sutter’s ghost, Berniece realizes that she must play the piano that she feels is haunted with spirits. She realized that playing the piano was the only way to get rid of the ghost and move on from the “haunted” past. Once Berniece plays the piano, the spirits leaves the house and Berniece starts thanking God for relieving her from the past. The final part of the play is Berniece giving thanks and Boy Willie departing from his family once again. Boy Willie decided to leave the piano in the hands of his sister and move on to something
The past seems like it would be a main theme because it is brought up the most in the play and has the biggest part. Other themes that are noticeable in the play are race and gender. These themes are not as common and don’t play a big part in the story like the past does in my opinion. The piano in the play symbolizes the family’s history and what they have gone through to get where they are in the play. Originally, the ancestors of the Charles family were slaves for the Sutter family. Grandpa Sutter decided to trade Doaker’s grandmother and father for a piano for his wife. Eventually the Charles family got revenge on Sutter by stealing the piano out of his home when he got it back. When Grandpa Sutter got his piano back from the person he traded slaves for, he had Doaker’s grandfather come and engrave pictures in it. Boy Willie views the piano as a piece of wood while Berniece sees it as much more. Berniece feels that the piano has the spirits of her ancestors in it and doesn’t want to let them go. She realizes that the piano is a very important piece of history because it holds things from the past that no one knows about. The piano is important to Berniece mostly because of her mother who polished the piano with her tears for many years and cared greatly about the