The Piano Lesson:Slave legacy & black American self iden
The Piano Lesson: union of slave legacy with black American self identity
In The Piano Lesson1, August Wilson has captured the black experience comprehensively. The main question he has asked is about the past of the Afro-Americans. This past includes years of slavery and degradation. According to Wilson , the main concern, which black Americans have to address is, what they should do with their past legacy, firstly of African civilization and secondly of slavery in the American continent. In their search for self-identity, this conflict of consciousness between past slave-selves and present independent selves has to be resolved. In The Piano Lesson, Wilson has offered a resolution. He invokes the past that is connected with the civilization of Africa in order to save the present and the future of the black Americans. This African legacy is also a balm to the sores of slavery. Wilson has presented the past, present and future of Afro-Americans as reconciled with the pagan African religion. In this way he has created a relationship in which African identity of the blacks helps the black Americans in their search for identity.
The identity of self is shaped by the past heritage of a people. This heritage includes myths, folklore, religion and rituals practiced by them. The black American community has a heritage of Africa as well as of slavery. According to Wilson:
they are African people. . . There’s something that’s part of the blood’s memory. There’s a sensibility that’s still African, despite the fact that we’ve been on the North American continent for three hundred and seventy years. We walk down the street differently. There’s a certain style. We decorate our houses differently, our ideas about the world are very different, and those things have survived for hundreds of years2.
Wilson seems to suggest that it is not possible to americanize the blacks in a way that makes no allowance for their cultural diversity. It is important to see what role the past has to play in establishing and promoting an essentially Afro-American identity. No community can retain a wholeness of self if it has to severe its connection with the past. Even if the past is traumatic the connection has to be established. The community has to come to terms with the trauma. It has to utilize it in such a way that it contributes to its sense of self...