Doaker Charles Doaker is tall and thin and forty-seven years old. He spent his life working for the railroad. He functions as the play’s testifier, recounting the piano’s history.
What happened to Boy Charles in The piano Lesson?
Boy Charles died along with the hobos in his car. The murderer was never identified, though the suspects soon began falling in their wells. Local residents attributed their deaths to the work of their victims’ spirits, dubbed the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog.
Who helped boy Charles steal the piano?
Review for The Piano Lesson (copy)
| A | B |
|---|---|
| I what year did Boy Charles steal the piano? | 1911 |
| Who helped Boy Charles steal the piano? | Doaker and Wining Boy |
| Where does Lymon’s truck break down two times? | West Virginia |
| Where did Doaker and Wining Boy take the piano? | Mama Ola |
What is Boy Willie’s past?
Explanation and Analysis: BOY WILLIE: All that’s in the past. If my daddy had seen where he could have traded that piano in for some land of his own, it wouldn’t be sitting up here now. He spent his whole life farming on somebody else’s land.
Who killed Sutter in The piano Lesson?
He is tired of one-night stands and dreams of finding the right woman. Musing on Wining Boy’s magic suit, he withdraws a bottle of perfume from his pocket and gives it to Berniece and they kiss. The final scene begins the next day with Willie telling Maretha of the Ghosts of Yellow Dog.
How old is Winingboy?
56-year-old Wining Boy is Doaker’s 56-year-old brother. Once a successful musician, he worked with Doaker on the railroad for a time and nowadays spends much of his time drinking and gambling.
How does Berenice exorcise Sutter?
Berniece uses the piano to exorcise the ghost and save her brother. Boy Willie decides that the heirloom belongs with the family and returns to Mississippi. In the time of slavery Robert Sutter owned the Charles family.
What is the last name of the family that the story focuses on The Piano Lesson?
Charles family Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, The Piano Lesson follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the family piano, which is decorated with designs carved by an enslaved ancestor.
Who is the ghost of the Yellow Dog?
The Ghost of the Yellow Dog is a spirit of the men whom died in the boxcar that was set ablaze. Apart of this group was Boy Charles and four other homeless men. They were murdered, and the Ghost has been said to get revenge on the individuals that killed them.
How long has Crawley been dead the piano lesson?
How long has it been since Crawley died? 3 years.
How long did Ophelia play the piano?
seventeen years Look at it. Mama Ola polished this piano with her tears for seventeen years. For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled.
How does Boy Willie claim Sutter has died?
How does Boy Willie claim Sutter has died? He was later murdered for it in the yellow box train car by whites. They tried burning his house also. Mother of Boy Willie, Mama Ola kept piano and then it was passed down to be shared among Willie and Berniece.
How does Berniece feel about Boy Willie?
Unlike other characters, the stage notes for Berniece are somewhat sparse, describing her as a thirty-five-year-old mother still mourning for her husband, Crawley. She blames her brother, Boy Willie, for her husband’s death, remaining ever skeptical of his bravado and chiding him for his rebellious ways.
Why does Berniece want the piano?
Berniece does not want to let her brother, who has come to claim his half of the piano, sell the piano because it is symbolic of her family’s freedom. … He wants to sell the piano in order to get the money to buy the Sutter land, something he believes will end, once and for all, the enslavement of the Charles family.
What does piano stand for in the play The Piano Lesson?
In his play, The Piano Lesson,August Wilson uses the piano to represent the Charles family’s history as well as the struggle of African Americans to reclaim their identity, language, and culture in the generations following slavery.
Who owns the piano in the piano lesson?
Robert Sutter was the original owner of the piano, which he acquired in exchange for one and a half slavesDoaker’s grandmother, and his father, who at that time was a child of nine. The two of them were sent off to Georgia, while Doaker’s grandfather, Willie Boy, remained at Sutter’s farm by himself.
Who does the piano belong to in The piano Lesson?
The piano itself had at one time belonged to the wife of the original Sutter, the white former owner of their family… and decades earlier, Berniece and Boy Willie’s grandfather had, at the slave master’s instructions, carved the black family’s African tribal history and American slave history into the piano’s surface …
What is Sutter’s ghost?
During the play, several characters see the ghost of Mr. Sutter, the man who probably murdered the father of Berniece and Boy Willie. Sutter was also the legal owner of the piano.
What was in Avery’s dream in The Piano Lesson?
Currently he works as an elevator operator in town. When asked how he became a preacher, Avery recounts a dream. Sitting in a railroad yard, he comes upon three hobos traveling from Nazareth to Jerusalem.They entrust a lit candle to him.
Who could the three hobos represent?
The three hobos seem to represent the Three Magi or wise men who are said to have witness Jesus birth. However, in Avery’s dream they are hobos, just like the hobos that make up part of the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog. Therefore, you could say that Avery’s vision blends Christianity with folk traditions.
What is Parchman Farm in The Piano Lesson?
Doaker brings out the whole bottle. Boy Willie starts talking about how he and Lymon were down on Parchman Farm, which is a penitentiary. (It’s basically like prison, but you have to work all day.)
How many ghosts are in The Piano Lesson?
The ghosts of the Yellow Dog refer to the ghosts of four black hobos and Papa Boy Charles, who are burned to death by the slave owners on a yellow dog train. Subsequently, Boy Charles and the four hobos become known as a collective, supernatural identity, namely the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog.
What color is the ghost that Lyman claims killed Sutter?
5. What color is the ghost that Lyman claims killed Sutter? Yellow.
What does Boy Willie suggest Avery bless?
Berniece dismisses everything Boy Willie just said. Doaker tries to change the subject and brings up that Avery is coming by to bless the house. Boy Willie says that churches are full of ghosts.
What does Boy Willie tell his customers when selling them watermelons?
Boy Willie arrives from Mississippi with a truck full of watermelons. He tells everybody that the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog pushed Sutter down his well. He declares that he plans to sell the piano so that he can buy Sutter’s land; Doaker tells him that Berniece will never agree.
Who was killed by the ghost of the Yellow Dog?
These ghosts primarily concern themselves with vengeance: Sutter returns to avenge his murder and reclaim the piano, and thus the Charles family; the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog avenge their own murder by murdering Sutter; these ghosts met their end when living in Boy Charles’s attempt to avenge the ancestors.
