Who Is the Protagonist of the Piano Lesson by August Wilson? Essay

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Piano Lesson

In August Wilson's play The Piano Lesson, Berniece is the protagonist or the heroine and main character, who represents the traditions and heritage of the family going back to the times of slavery and even to Africa itself. Willie on the other hand is the antagonist, a violent and angry man, a thief and a murderer who takes revenge on the Sutter family but now intends to use the money from the sale of the piano to buy their land. In short, he is a young capitalist who intends to move up in America and take the place of Sutter, but Berniece decides against this. From the start, she refuses to cooperate with Willie, but for most of the play she is reluctant to accept the piano at all during the first two acts of the play, but in the climactic scene at the end, she uses its power to save her brother's life from the ghost of James Sutter. Finally, she also teaches her daughter Maretha about its history and meaning, ensuring that the family legacy will be passed down to the next generation. Berniece is the protagonist and heroine because her conflict with Willie drives the entire play, and ultimately the choices about whether to sell the piano and how to use it are always in her hands. She is the key matriarchal and spiritual figure in the story and finally invokes the spirits of their ancestors and saves their traditions for the future.

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In Act I, Bernice is revealed to be the protagonist at once, she clearly intends to prevent her brother Willie from selling the piano, even though she fears and dislikes it. Throughout the drama, the central conflict will always be between Berniece and Willie, and will ultimately be resolved in her favor. Although she is highly ambivalent about the piano and the legacy it represents, she never supports Willie's plan to sell it in order to buy the Sutter land. Only at the end of the play does she come to accept it as the symbol of their family traditions going back to the time of slavery, and to Africa even before that. She also blames Willie for her husband's death, which came about as the result of a fight he provoked with some white men back in Mississippi. This was why he had been in Parchman Prison for three years, and from the start Berniece makes it clear that she does not want Willie in the house at all. She makes it clear immediately that she suspects Willie of murdering the white landowner James Sutter, saying that "somebody down there pushing them people in their wells" (Wilson 5). Symbolically, she also represents their entire family line, including an ancestor named Berniece who the slave master Robert Sutter traded for the piano 137 years ago.

Berniece is still….....

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"Who Is The Protagonist Of The Piano Lesson By August Wilson ", 10 October 2011, Accessed.30 June. 2025,
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