Problem:
In the play, The Piano Lesson, a number of oppositions are set up and they all have to be explored and the actions between those oppositions clarified. One is between blacks and whites and their history together, specifically the Sutters and the family of Bernice and Boy Willie. Clearly at the heart of this opposition is slavery, emancipation, and subsequent history. In the long narratives of the first and second act, what do the characters reveal about how the African Americans have dealt over the generations with their "freedom"?