The Piano Lesson by Vlad Jecan https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt 4 Scenes - 4 Groups en-us 2016-11-11 17:16:00 UTC 2025-12-11 18:56:02 UTC hello@padlet.com Instructions Jecan https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt/wish/137055369 Work-time: 14 - 18 min
What to do:
1. Provide a brief overview of the scene assigned to your group in relationship with the play.
2. Observer, analyze, and interpret the themes, symbols, and metaphors (if any) that contribute to identity development.
3. What is your interpretation of the scene. What does Wilson try to say through that scene?
4. Prepare 2-3 questions for the class based on your scene but implying the your observations from 2. 

Technicals: in the subject line and your group number and your names while in the text field add notes on each of the four points in the what to do list. Prepare to present your findings.]]> 2016-11-11 17:16:38 UTC https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt/wish/137055369 Group 1 - Scene 1 https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt/wish/137057444 Tyler Daugherty
Sydney Mai
The Eriq Colon
Alexis Glasgow
Abigail Burke
Emma Fick
Sara Atamna

Brief Overview: Boy Willie comes with a truck full of watermelons. Berneice suspects that they might be stolen. She feels that they just cause trouble and is upset that they have arrived. Boy Willie talks about wanting to buy land that his family used to work on. Berneice is suspicious that Boy Willie pushed him into the well. Boy Willie wants to sell the piano. Doaker tells him Berneice won't let him sell the piano. 
Themes, Symbols, and Metaphors: It is implied that he did steal the truck because he is selling watermelons out of it because "Did you get that off a truck?" which implies that it was stolen. 
The interest in buying the land is a common theme that relates the characters back to their historical roots and familial ties. The piano also does this but in a different way. The land implies wanting to hold onto their past. The piano symbolizes family history. The piano also symbolizes the characters' personal song as it did in Joe Turner's Come and Gone.
Boy Willie and Berneice are foils. 
Interpretation: Raises suspicion of Boy Willie. Berneice represents wanting to hold onto your past and history in the way that it existed before. Boy Willie presents the fight between this viewpoint and wanting to make something out of the past and moving forward with it. Parents tend to be more attached to their roots and history than their children do. 

What is the chief emotion that Boy Willie and Berneice represent and how do they act as foils to one another?
How are generational differences seen and expressed in this scene as well as their effects on the rest of the play?
 

]]> 2016-11-11 17:25:53 UTC https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt/wish/137057444 Group 3- Act 2 Scene 1 https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt/wish/137058070 Rocqsanna Malek
Aaron Vickery
Daniel Carlson
Rachel Jochimsen 
Miles Cleveland 
Ashley Griffith

1. During this scene, Doaker admits that he saw the ghost playing the piano, and Wining boy is trying to sell his silk suit. Lymon and boy Willie come back from selling watermelons and then Wining boy tells Lymon that the suit has a magical effect on ladies, and he sells it to him. 
2. Wining boy selling his suit to Lymon is symbolic because it shows Wining boy passing on this symbolic object from one generation to another. He is parting with something that holds meaning to him, and because of this Wining boy shows character development. 
3. The suit and the piano symbolize the idea of inheritance, and how your culture is made up of objects that you have given special meaning to. The passing down of these symbolized objects represents your engagement in your culture, and the development of character. We also inferred that they are still haunted by some of the negative aspects of their past (the Sutters'). 
4. 
1) Do you think selling the piano back to the Sutters' for a new start is more important than preserving your heritage? (knowing that you would be selling the piano back to the people that had once enslaved you)
2) How do you think August Wilson values passing on your legacy from generation to generation?]]> 2016-11-11 17:28:39 UTC https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt/wish/137058070 Act 1, Scene 2 https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt/wish/137058302 Jada Lewis, Jazmine Avery, Grace Bullabaugh, Kenny Ikebude, Zach Maslia, Dominique Ferrell

Overview: Lymon and Boy Willie are trying to sell watermelons int he white neighborhoods, but their truck keeps breaking down. Berniece is still mourning over Crawley, who is murdered by white people. Boy Willie, who is accompanied by Lymon talks about the time where he spoke with the Ghosts at the railroad, and he leaves feeling empowered and has good luck for three years. Boy Willie announces that he has found a buyer for the piano, but Doaker and Wining Boy say that the land that he is attempting to buy is worthless. Willie still wants the land.

Wining Boy mentions that Boy Willie and Lymon were once on Parchman Prison Farm. Willie explains that Lymon, Crawley, and himself were chased by white people. Crawley fought back and was killed, while the other two went to prison for theft. Mr. Stovall bails Lymon out of jail, on the condition that Lymon would work for him. Lymon flees, planning to go to Pittsburgh, because black people are treated better there than in the South.

Willie disagrees and states that white people will only treat you as badly as you let them. Wining Boy agrees but says that white people have the advantage of the law. Willie declares that he only follows the law when it is right, and Wining Boy states that Willie will end up back on Parchman with that mind state. 

Themes and Symbols:
Piano
Land
Memories
Collective Memory

Interpretation:
August Wilson provides a perspective on past events and character development.

Questions:
Willie declares that he only follows the law when it is right. Is there a difference between the law and what is right?


]]> 2016-11-11 17:29:36 UTC https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt/wish/137058302 Act 2, Scene 2 https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt/wish/137061620 Ashish Biju, Nick Weinberg, Connor Richter, Aaliyah Stoudemire, Garrett Lane, Raveena Mandala, Genesis Harwell, Nnenna Okoro, Wenying Huang, Yaoze Han 

Brief Overview: 
Avery wants to be with Berniece and proposes to her, but Bernice says no because she still has so much more to live for. Bernice is frustrated with the idea of her having to getting married just because she is a woman. She cannot put the past behind her as evidenced by her inability to play the piano. Although Avery tells her to move on from the past, he himself is unable to move past his feelings for Berniece. 
 
Symbols: 
Piano: a symbol of how many of the characters (Avery, Berniece) is unable to move on from the past. Also, a major symbol representing their family history. The characters struggle with their family history and its significance in the times they're living in.
Memories & Collective Memory: singing songs to reminisce about the past 
 
The scene centers around neither of the characters being able to move on (Avery from Berniece, and Berniece from her familial history and past). By proposing to Berniece, Avery attempts to help Berniece move on. Wilson is attempting to emphasize the importance of the past and how intertwined it is with one’s own identity. 
 
Questions:
Is Berniece ahead of her time in terms of her reluctance to conform to societal pressure? 
Is Berniece displaying strength in her unwillingness to give up the past or is it more of a weakness? 
]]> 2016-11-11 17:44:31 UTC https://padlet.com/Jecan/plt/wish/137061620