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Act 2, Scene 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Piano Lesson, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Self-determination
Spirituality and the Supernatural
Grief, Hope, and History
Love, Relationships, and Independence
Summary
Analysis
Late the next morning, Boy Willie walks in, finding Lymon asleep on the couch. He spent last night at Grace’s but left before her ex-boyfriend, Leroy, tried to break in. He pushes Lymon on the floor and tells him to get up—he’s called the musical instrument collector about the piano, so they have to get it loaded onto the truck. As they each take a side of the piano, Sutter’s ghost is heard offstage. The piano won’t budge.
Boy Willie’s plans for the piano move forward, or so he thinks. The piano seems to resist their efforts to remove it from the house, and their initiative apparently offends Sutter’s ghost.
Themes
As Lymon and Boy Willie continue to wrestle with the piano, Doaker comes in and orders them, with quiet authority, to leave the piano alone until Berniece comes home. Boy Willie relents and heads out with Lymon in search of a rope, plank, and wheels with which to transport the piano later.
Though he typically stays out of such things, Doaker loyally backs up his niece when it’s necessary. Boy Willie is undaunted, though, and remains determined to move and sell the piano no matter what his sister says.
Themes
