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Lymon’s and Boy Willie’s repeatedly broken-down pickup truck is a comical feature in the play, but it also symbolizes creative self-determination in the midst of oppressive circumstances. Lymon and Boy Willie travel from Mississippi to Pittsburgh in the truck in hopes of selling a load of watermelons and helping both men start new lives. And for Lymon, the truck has also served as a means of concealment and escape from a Mississippi sheriff who is trying to force Lymon to work for Stovall, a local white landowner, against Lymon’s will. The truck thus symbolizes the men’s initiative in choosing and pursuing their own paths in life, while also hinting at the obstacles and limitations they face as Black men within a racist environment.
Truck Quotes in The Piano Lesson
The The Piano Lesson quotes below all refer to the symbol of Truck. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Act 1, Scene 1
Quotes
BOY WILLIE: Lymon bought that truck so he have him a place to sleep. He down there wasn’t doing no work or nothing. Sheriff looking for him. He bought that truck to keep away from the sheriff. Got Stovall looking for him too. He down there sleeping in that truck ducking and dodging both of them. I told him come on let’s go up and see my sister.
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Act 1, Scene 2
Quotes
BOY WILLIE: They looking for Lymon down there now. They rounded him up and put him in jail for not working.
LYMON: Fined me a hundred dollars. Mr. Stovall come and paid my hundred dollars and the judge say I got to work for him to pay him back his hundred dollars. I told them I’d rather take my thirty days but they wouldn’t let me do that.
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Get the entire The Piano Lesson LitChart as a printable PDF.
Truck Symbol Timeline in The Piano Lesson
The timeline below shows where the symbol Truck appears in The Piano Lesson. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1, Scene 1
...the way from Mississippi. Boy Willie explains that they’re here selling watermelons—they have a whole truckload. Lymon says that he hopes to stay in Pittsburgh to see what it’s like here;...
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Berniece looks outside at the truck filled with watermelons. She’s skeptical about how Boy Willie and Lymon came to own the...
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...two weeks to get the money. This is why he’s come to Pittsburgh with a truck full of watermelons and a determination to sell Berniece’s piano.
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Act 1, Scene 2
...keep intending to sell to the white people who live in Squirrel Hill, but their truck has repeatedly broken down on the way there.
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Boy Willie and Lymon come in; they’ve had to leave the broken-down truck with a mechanic and are arguing over which of them should sleep in the truck...
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...the debt, overruling Lymon’s preference to serve jail time instead. After that, Lymon got his truck so that he could dodge both the sheriff and Stovall.
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Act 2, Scene 1
...$3. Lymon agrees and talks Boy Willie, who’s preoccupied about fitting the piano into the truck, into going to the picture show that evening to meet some women.
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Act 2, Scene 4
...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...
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