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    Ready Reference Treatise: The Piano Lesson
    Ready Reference Treatise: The Piano Lesson
    Ready Reference Treatise: The Piano Lesson
    Ebook41 pages35 minutes

    Ready Reference Treatise: The Piano Lesson

    By Raja Sharma

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    The story is set in the period after the Great Depression in the year 1936. The place is Pittsburg. The Piano Lesson follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the infamous piano. The play focuses on the arguments between a brother and a sister who have different ideas on what to do with the piano they own. The brother, Boy Willie, is a sharecropper who wants to sell the piano to buy the land (Sutter's land) that his ancestors had toiled on as slaves while the sister, Berniece, remains emphatic about keeping it. The piano shows the carved faces of their great-grandfather's wife of son during the days of their enslavement.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRaja Sharma
    Release dateMay 20, 2012
    ISBN9781476382227
    Ready Reference Treatise: The Piano Lesson
    Author

    Raja Sharma

    Raja Sharma is a retired college lecturer.He has taught English Literature to University students for more than two decades.His students are scattered all over the world, and it is noticeable that he is in contact with more than ninety thousand of his students.

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      Book preview

      Ready Reference Treatise - Raja Sharma

      Ready Reference Treatise: The Piano Lesson

      Raja Sharma

      Copyright@2012 Raja Sharma

      Smashwords Edition

      All Rights Reserved

      Chapter 1: Introduction to The Piano Lesson

      The Piano Lesson by American playwright August Wilson was first launched in 1990. It was the fourth of the plays in the author’s The Pittsburgh Cycle. Wilson was perplexed with the question arising from acquiring a sense of self worth by denying one’s past. This play was his response to the question that by denying one’s past, one can acquire a sense of self which is definitely worth it.

      The Piano Lesson brought Wilson both name and fame. It won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for drama in the year 1990. August Wilson began to be recognized as one of the best American playwrights.

      The story of the novel The Piano Lesson was inspired by the painting The Piano Lesson by Romare Bearden. Wilson began to think about presenting a strong female character to confront African-American history, paralleling Troy in earlier Fences. However, after finishing his play, Wilson found the ending to stray from the empowered female character as well as the question regarding one's self worth. The final question proposed by The Piano Lesson seems to ask, what do you do with your legacy, and how do you best put it to use? One’s self worth seems to be transformed into a question which seems to want an answer as to how your qualities and virtues can be put into best use.

      The story is set in the period after the Great Depression in the year 1936. The place is Pittsburg. The Piano Lesson describes the lives of the members of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the infamous piano. The play focuses on the arguments between a brother and a sister who have different ideas on what to do with the piano they own. The brother, Boy Willie, is a sharecropper who wants to sell the piano to buy the land (Sutter's land) that his ancestors had toiled on as slaves while the sister, Berniece, remains emphatic about keeping it. The piano shows the carved faces of their great-grandfather's wife of son during the days of their enslavement.

      Chapter 2: Major Characters

      Doaker Charles

      Doaker Charles is one of the most important characters in the story. He is the owner of the Charles household; he is the uncle of Berniece and Boy Willie. He lives with his niece Bernice and great-niece Maretha. A tall and thin 47 year old man, Charles recounts the most detailed parts of his lives with his job on the railroad. Doaker plays the role of the storyteller, giving detailed and long accounts of the piano's

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