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Example research essay topic: Boy Willie White Man - 1,564 words

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... s to worship the past and not to make use of it. She has no vision of the future like Boy Willie. She does not dream about the future.

Her husband has been dead for three years and she is still mourning him though there is another man in her life. She has not gotten over the fact that her husband Crawley is dead. To gain identity for herself, Berniece has to decide what her past means to her. Otherwise she is going to become stagnated. She needs to get rid of her dead husbands ghost if she has to prosper in life as a woman with self-identity. In comparison with this, Boy Willie has a vision for the future but he is unable to recognize the value of past.

Again and again he tries to affirm that he is as bad as the white man, or as good as the white man. He is trying to equate himself with the white man. He is trying to forget the fact that there is any difference of heritage between him and the white man. In his need to be his own master, Boy Willie refuses to accept that his family was once slaves. The consciousness of the past heritage is not there in his personality. It is only a vision of future, which constitutes his self.

For him the piano is only beneficial if it provides financial profit. Boy Willie has no consciousness of the value of the piano as a legacy of his past. He is trying to close his eyes to the fact that the experience of his race is different from the experience of the white race. The experience of ones race is embedded into the consciousness of ones self-identity.

Boy Willie is trying to forget about that experience of his race but he cannot forge a new identity without coming to terms with that experience. He thinks that he can take the white man on his own terms. But he is wrong. When he fights with Sutter's ghost, he realizes he cannot defeat it.

This implies that Boy Willie has been unable to realize his self-identity. He is not whole with his clarified self -identity. For an integrated sense of self, it is important that the self has recognized not only its vision of future but also its link with the past. Without verifying a link with the past the self would simply not be whole. This sense of continuation with the past is lacking in Boy Willie. His sister has this sense but it is so painful that she is unable to face it.

Instead of framing the future, berniece is simply shutting up herself in the past. By doing this, she does not have to acknowledge the future. She does not have to resolve the conflict, which exists between her sense of the past as slaves and her vision for a free future. This seems to be a leap she is not willing to take.

She has to take this leap in asserting herself. Boy Willie has to search for his identity not only in his future but also in his past. His sister has to understand that for the self to be whole past is not to be a handicap but something contributing positively to the present and the future. It is important here to see that what can be the medium through which past and future can be tied up in order to have a secure self-identity.

Finally in the end of the play Boy Willie decides to sell the piano without Berniece's permission and give her half the money. But when he and Lymon try to lift the piano, they find it too heavy. LYMON: Man this piano is heavy! Its gonna take more than me and you to move this piano.

This statement by Lymon suggests a double meaning because in the beginning they both are able to lift the piano. But now it is not possible for the two of them. They need more than that. They need a complete realization of there selves. They need Berniece to clear their past of ghosts so they can have the strength to lift the piano. In a way, they are going to be able to carry the burden of their past.

But the point is that how they are going to manage this task. As Boy Willie says: BOY WILLIE: [ ] But my mama aint birthed me for nothing. So what I got to do? I got to mark my passing on the road. Just like you write on a tree, Boy Willie was here. Thats all Im trying to do with that piano.

Trying to put my mark on the road. Boy Willie is trying to achieve acknowledgement of the fact that he exists in his own right as a human being and not as some coloured or lower class of man. He wants to achieve self-respect. He wants the world to know and respect his presence. He needs to be clear about his identity as a black American. The ghost of Sutter is there to test his strength.

For if Boy Willies claim of being equal to the white man has to be true, he must fight Sutter's ghost and win. If he loses that means that black folks really are at the bottom. Here Wilson draws a parallel between the search for black identity and religion. With all the talk of Avery the search becomes a sort of salvation of the blacks.

When avery comes into the house to bless it, Dealer tells him to bless the piano because he says that it has caused the most of trouble. Avery starts sprinkling the water to cleanse the house of Sutter's ghost. What he says while doing it sounds as if he is trying to give the blacks their sense of identity. AVERY: I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean: from all your uncleanliness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. These lines suggest as if Avery is trying to raise the black self-identity.

He is trying to put into them a new spirit and a new heart. But it does not seem possible that forging a new sense of self is going to help them. Their existing sense of self has to be salvaged and put into order. This is why Avery fails to finish off Sutter's ghost. He tries to create something which is not reconciled with the past, which is so newly made that it can have no comparison with a self created out of generations of suffering. This self, created by the generations of suffering slaves is symbolized in the character of Berniece.

She has to realize her potential as that of someone who can tackle all ghosts of the past. She has to overcome her fear of the past. She has to let the wounds of the past heal because Boy Willie needs her help to win over Sutter's ghost. But it is not she alone who can save him.

She has to call upon her ancestors. She invokes the spirits of her dead forefathers and they come to help Boy Willie. In this act of invocation, Berniece becomes a pagan priestess of the religion of self-identity. ([ ] 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. A rustle of wind blows across two continents. ) (act 2, scene 1) These lines in the directions of the play suggest that Berniece answered to a call somewhere deep in her. The word old has been used twice in the passage. It seems to suggest that the part of Berniece, which answered the call, is the one that contains her African heritage, because the song is also an old urge and the realization that she must sing also comes from somewhere old.

Wilson suggests that in order to create the self it is important to reconcile with the past. With the help of Berniece and her song, Boy Willies is able to win over Sutter's ghost. He realizes the value of the piano and looks elsewhere in his efforts to find money. By the defeat of the white mans ghost, the black characters in the play seem to have gained their identity as black Americans. They can exist as independent and complete selves now.

Notes 1 August Wilson, The Piano Lesson, (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1990). Hereafter cited in the main text by title or page numbers. 2 C. W. E Bigsby, Modern American Drama 1945 - 1990, (Cambridge: UP of Cambridge, 1992), 296.

Works Cited Berkowitz, Gerald M. American Drama of the Twentieth Century. London: Longman Group UK Ltd. , 1992. Bigsby, C. W. E. , Modern American Drama 1945 - 1990.

Cambridge: UP of Cambridge, 1992. Perkins, George and Perkins, Barbara. ed. The American Tradition in Literature, Vol 2: 9 th edition.

London: McGraw Hill, 1994. QUDSIA SAJJAD


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Research essay sample on Boy Willie White Man

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