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"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"(Wilson 1.2.10-11). Here Big Willie defies the cultural expectations of the white people by planning to go out and buy land and striving to be self-sufficient. In the 1930s most African Americans where unable to buy and work their own land because white people wouldn't let them. Willie is defying this expectation and cultural norm.

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"That's when him and Mama Berniece got married. They called it jumping the broom. That's how you got married in them days." (Wilson 1.2.44)
Traditions carried throughout getting married are overall depicted by ones culture. When Berniece got married, "jumping the broom" was apart of her a cultural expectation. This reflects how the family relationships are based on their connections to their own culture.

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"Now I done learned after twenty-seven years of railroading is this... if the train stays on track... it's going to get where it's going... The train don't never stop. It'll come back every time" (Wilson 1.1.19). Doaker has been working on the railroad for twenty-seven years. He connects his family to their past through his stories. This is his way to face his and his family's past and overcome the difficulties they faced. Reflecting on the past helps to overcome present day problems.

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"I knew right there and then that I had been filled with the Holy Ghost and called to be a servant of the lord. It took me a while before I could accept that. But then a lot of little ways God showed me that it was true. So I became a preacher." (Wilson 1.1.25)
People are often called to sacrifice aspects of their lives for religious reasons and beliefs. Avery said that it took them a long tome to come to accept that, showing how big of a sacrifice it was.

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"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 Martha playing on it though. Say Martha can go on and do everything she cant do." Bernice feels like the the piano has became a part of her but she stopped playing. Having her daughter play piano gives her a way to still connect to the past of the piano. She doesn't want to give up the piano because it would in a way take part of her past away from her. The piano plays a large past in her identity and where she finds herself.

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"Sutter called him up to the house and told him to carve my grandmother and my daddy's picture on the piano for Miss Ophelia. And he took and carved this . . . See that right there? That's my grandmother, Berniece. She looked just like that. And he put a picture of my daddy when he wasn't nothing but a little boy the way he remembered him. He made them up out of his memory. Only thing . . . he didn't stop there. He carved all this. He got a picture of his mama . . . Mama Esther . . . and his daddy, Boy Charles." i still gotta finish this.

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"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" (Wilson 46). Berniece holds the piano close to her because it it essentially the only thing she has that connects her to her father. Doaker explains the whole situation to Boy Willie to get him to understand the significance it holds withing the family. The piano represents the family's history and their start, and that's something Berniece isn't willing to give up for Boy Willie's hope of land. Berniece is aware of the significance and does not want to risk loosing the family heirloom that her father died for.

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"I'm trying to get me some land, woman. I need that piano to get me some money so I can buy Sutter's land" (Wilson 1.2.50)
Boy Willie appears to revolve his identity around the piano that Berniece owns, an heirloom descended from their family's former slave owners, and his desperate attempt to sell it in order to acquire the land that belonged to the slave owners. Boy Willie's presence at the home of Doaker and Berniece is accompanied by his persistent, and often argumentative, persuasion of Berniece to sell the piano, indicating his devotion towards obtaining it. His watermelon selling business with Lymon to raise his profit towards the land also ties in to his devotion.

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"Get Berneice to sell that piano. Put the two parts with the parts i've done saved" (Wilson 42). This is a quote from Boy Willie asking Doaker to help convince Berneice to sell their family piano. The piano holds great value to Bernice as her father died trying to keep the piano in the family. Asking Bernice to sell such a important momento is a big sacrifice.

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Lymon and Boy Willie were accused of stealing and put in jail a while back. Lymon said, "Fined me a hundred dollars. Mr. Stovall come and paid my hundred dollars and the judge say I got to work to pay him back his hundred dollars. I told them I'd rather take my 30 days but they wouldn't let me do that"(1.2.37). Lymon didn't even steal wood and then he's being forced to work to pay off a debt he didn't earn. Now he's running from them.

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"It was coming up on Sutter's wedding anniversary and he was looking to buy his wife Miss Ophelia was her name, he was looking to buy her an anniversary present. Only thing with his he ain't had no money" (Wilson 1.2.42). It is the cultural expectations to celebrate your wedding anniversary by getting you and your partner gifts. However this cultural expectations can be forced and cause panic like how Sutter had no money to buy a gift. These expectations are forced and are a given even though they may not be in the best interest economically they still have to oblige these expectations.

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“Now that’s the difference between the colored man and the white man. The colored man can’t fix nothing with the law (Wilson 1.2.38) Wilson gives an example to explain the inequalities between black and white men. This example shows that Wining Bou believed that the strongest injustice between the two is that white people are able to manipulate the law in their favor against people of color.

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"She was something back then. She wasn't too pretty but she had a way of looking at you made you know there was a whole lot of woman there," (1.2.32). Wining Boy shows what he values in a woman revealing the type of man he is. He views women as trophies to be won and fought for.

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"you trying to tell me a woman cant be nothing without a man. But you alright, huh? You can just walk out of here without me-without a woman-and still be a man. Thats alright. aint nobody gonna ask you, "Avery, everybody gonna be worried about Berniece... Everybody telling me I cant be a woman unless I gotta man" (Wilson 2.2.67). Berniece is talking to Avery and this shows how society viewed women at the time.

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"Couldn't nothing keep me still. Much as I loved Cleotha I loved to ramble. Couldn't nothing keep me still. We got married and we used to fight about it all the time. Then one day she asked me to leave. Told me she loved me when she left."(Wilson 1.2.31)
When Wining Boy brings up his ex-wife Cleotha's death, he recounts his marriage with her. Although he was married, Wining Boy couldn't sacrifice his independence for her. They sacrificed their marriage and split up, even though Cleotha still loved him.

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"That's what you need to do. And you need to do it quick. Come in here disrupting the house. I don't want all that loud carrying on around here. I'm surprised you ain't woke Maretha up." (Wilson Act 1 Scene 1 Page 7)
Boy Willie and Berniece have an obvious tension between them, and the reader can only wonder what their bond was like when kids. It is later revealed that Berniece blames Boy Willie for her husband's death, and now has no trust in him. She calls the two (Lymon and Boy Willie) thieves when asking how they could afford a truck. Berniece and Boy Willie do not have a regular relationship, as Boy Willie seems to be more willy-nilly and Berniece still holds onto a tight grudge.

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"Avery think all white men is bigshots. He don't know there are some white men ain't got as much as he got"(Wilson 1.1.11) In this time period, it can be expected that white people have much more opportunities than white people. But as this quote shows, Boy Willie, in a conversation with Doaker, says that not every white is as fortunate as some black people. This defies the cultural expectations of the time as it shows that black people, although a rarity could also be well off.

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"Fined me a hundred dollars. Mr. Stovall come and paid my hundred dollars and the judge say I got to work to pay him back his hundred dollars. I told them I'd rather take my 30 days but they wouldn't let me do that" Lymon was wrongly accused and put in jail for theft. He is now paying off the debt that he shouldn't even have in the first place.

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"You going up there . . . wake her up and tell
her her uncle's here. I ain't seen her in three years.
Wake her up and send her down here. She can go back to bed" (Wilson 7).

Boy Willie has returned from prison and traveled 1800 miles just to visit his family who he hasn't been with in three years. Despite the warnings of Doaker and Bernice to keep quiet, Boy Willie is so overcome with the joy of being reunited with his loved ones that he insists on everyone in the house, including Maretha, his niece, who is asleep upstairs, to wake up and come greet him.