Character Analysis: The Piano Lesson
After Reconstruction ended in 1877, U.S. pressed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments but African Americans did not receiving much support. However there was a lack of economic progress relating to business and wealth. The Piano Lesson has a character named Boy Willie who is a thirty-year-old African American that is Berniece’s brother. He was a sharecropper who wanted his own land, and told Berniece to the family piano so that he could buy his own land to farm. The Piano Lesson is a 1990 play written by August Wilson, that sets in 1936. Thesis: Even though there were paying jobs for African Americans, there was still a lack of economic progress because whites continued to discriminate against them.
Body Paragraph 1: Yes, there were economic …show more content…
Though Boy Willie is getting an opportunity to get his own land, he is still experiencing a lack of economic progress. Sutter’s brother would “let [him] have it for two thousand dollars [but]…the most Stovall would give him for it was fifteen hundred dollars” (Wilson 9). Boy Willie would have to pay more for the same amount of land because he is African American. Based on The Piano Lesson, Boy Willie (in the end) doesn’t even get the land. He is to much at a disadvantage that it ends up being to hard for him to buy the land. In the New Negro: “when He’s Hit He Hits Back!” by Rollin Lynde is article in 1921 that showed a lack of economic progress. The article showed that in the north “where Negros are working, they have to pay twice the rent, and in neighbor clothing and grocery stares recent investigations show that for the same goods the negro has to pay a color tax sometimes as high 50 percent” (Hartt). The article is the same as Boy Willie because the tax is mainly based on them being African American. The typical African American has to deal with his/her disadvantages because they were taxed heavily and do not have as many opportunities. George A. Harrison is an exception, even Boy Willie who has the piano to sell to earn more money. The Piano lesson was based from 1936 of the aftermath of Great Depression but the tax
Body Paragraph 1: Yes, there were economic …show more content…
Though Boy Willie is getting an opportunity to get his own land, he is still experiencing a lack of economic progress. Sutter’s brother would “let [him] have it for two thousand dollars [but]…the most Stovall would give him for it was fifteen hundred dollars” (Wilson 9). Boy Willie would have to pay more for the same amount of land because he is African American. Based on The Piano Lesson, Boy Willie (in the end) doesn’t even get the land. He is to much at a disadvantage that it ends up being to hard for him to buy the land. In the New Negro: “when He’s Hit He Hits Back!” by Rollin Lynde is article in 1921 that showed a lack of economic progress. The article showed that in the north “where Negros are working, they have to pay twice the rent, and in neighbor clothing and grocery stares recent investigations show that for the same goods the negro has to pay a color tax sometimes as high 50 percent” (Hartt). The article is the same as Boy Willie because the tax is mainly based on them being African American. The typical African American has to deal with his/her disadvantages because they were taxed heavily and do not have as many opportunities. George A. Harrison is an exception, even Boy Willie who has the piano to sell to earn more money. The Piano lesson was based from 1936 of the aftermath of Great Depression but the tax