Framing the Problematics of Choice and Legacy: A Reading of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson as a Dilemma Tale

Introduction

Issues in the literary text have not been much a complex enterprise for the writer as the narrative pathway chosen to convey these issues and for this reason, the literary writer employs the technique that is not only convenient but apt for his/her writing. In the African setting for instance, the oral art form as an “inherited poetics” has been one surest way for the African poet to convey his message and this African oral art form hinges largely on mnemonics and/or the technology of writing (Ong, 2002, p. 80). One’s ability to recall and utilize the available archetypal narrative structures in the African oeuvre makes him/her not only to free his/her mind of the burden of the right channel for informing his audience but, it as well comes with its own inherent interpretative relevance.

The point worth noting is that underneath this notion of African orality is the broader idea of (oral) tradition and this phenomenon is understood, in its common usage as stated by Baker (2000) as “that which has linkage with the past and cultural continuity.” It resonates with the conventions, beliefs, practices, and social attitude of a community that shares a common root. Moreover, tradition is neither revived nor invented. (Hobsbawm & Terence, 1983:8 as cited in Baker, 2000) discusses the “invention of tradition” to mean:

a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.

The understanding, per Baker (2000), therefore is that tradition is transcendental for it lives with the people that upholds it which is subsequently internalized by the community to which it is borne into. It is neither invented nor created. It is the fundamental makeup of a people.

Again, tradition, to Baker (2000), has utilitarian function. It carries with it, the community’s cultural norms and values. So, as its adherents internalize it, it then serves to inculcate in them these community values, beliefs, history as well as its heritage. This is an understanding of the term that is shared with T.S. Eliot when he discusses the notion of tradition and individual talent for, conversely, he posits that the poet is a mere channel through him/her the collective experiences of the community is shared to the wider audience. According to T.S. Eliot, tradition is not inherited but it is a complete organic experience that a people share and this people—although Eliot bases his discussion on Europeans—can be extended to the African and African American community. Opoku-Agyemang and Asempasah (2006) observes that chirographic space and orality intersect and by this intersection, the idea is that people have developed—as Ong (2002) put it, technologically in terms of writing their oral history—to include writing or documenting their oral arts.

Fiction writing has a liberational aspect attached to it (Opoku-Agyemang & Asempasah, 2006) and as such, African American writers use this creative process to explore their conditions such as identity and heritage. Moreover, as a hybrid cultural community, African American culture is binary; it is a fusion of African and American culture. As a member of the larger African community, African American writers subtly adopt various narrative oral structures that have their traces from the oral tradition of their African ancestry in their literary writings. The available scholarship demonstrate that a number of American African literary writers have used various African oral narrative structures and a case in point is Boan (1998) where he discusses the usage of “call and response” narrative technique in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson; Opoku-Agyemang & Asempasah (2006) also explicate the idea that Tony Morrison uses the dilemma tale type as a narrative technique in her novel, Beloved. Fishman (1994) in her essay titled Romare Bearden, August Wilson, and the traditions of African performance also discusses among other issues, the correlation in artistic representation of the human condition between Bearden and Wilson—all being African Americans. She explains that the former is well lettered while the latter is a high school dropout yet Fishman (1994) postulates that “these two artists together incorporat[ed] into their art. . . the elements that define traditional African performance” and these elements include but not limited to the art of storytelling. The mentioning of storytelling finds its way into the core discussion of dilemma tale which is one of the main structural technique of telling a story in Africa.

This paper therefore attempts to use the dilemma tale type as an interpretative narrative framework to understand Wilson’s (1990) Pulitzer award winning play, The Piano Lesson. In this play, August Wilson uses the dilemma folkloric type to unlock the interaction between the past and the present which is understood, at the end of the play, to be the apprehension of the meaning of legacy to the African American. It is understood from the play that Wilson’s major focus is to problematize as well as to complicate the meaning of historical legacy by presenting the idea of choice as a complex moral and cultural interrogation of one’s self and his/her history. In the narration, Berniece is the elder sister to Boy Willie, and their slave parents were exchanged for this “piano” in question but it appears in the narration that the piano represents two different ideas to each of these siblings. For Boy Willie, it is a money-making instrument and for Berniece, it is the soul of her family’s ancestry.

This paper argues that the dilemma tale type, by its form, focus and efficacy, serves as the lens through which the alternative choices of apprehending historical legacy by Afro Americans is understood. The work is structured in such that the first part introduces as well as discusses the topic. The second part reviews literature related to this work so as to contextualize the entire work which is then followed by an explication of what dilemma tale is. The next section presents the discussion or the arguments which then is followed by a conclusion and implication reflective of the arguments.

Situating August Wilson and His Works in the Context of Orality

August Wilson is recognized as one of the prominent playwrights in American Broadway theatre and as such, his works have received a number of scholarly interpretations ranging from critical racial issues, women representation, Black history and aesthetics to the general representation of the human condition of the African American (cf. Harry & Elam, 1994; Morales, 1994; Shannon, 1994; Singleton, 2009; Subedi, 2020). It is also the case that Wilson’s work, particularly The Piano Lesson, has been explored through the African oral narrative type—call and response (Boan, 1998)—however, what appears to be lacking in the literature is the usage of the dilemma tale type as an interpretive framework in understanding the issue of legacy in The Piano Lesson. This perspective of understanding Wilson’s play situates well in understanding the rudiments of the construction of the African American’s experience in their “New Home,” their apprehension of legacy and the dialectics surrounding choice as understood from these Africans who are now Americans.

On a number of occasions (both granted interviews and publications), August Wilson has attempted to justify his commitment to deployment of African narratological props in his literary works and one such occasion is his interview with the Kennedy Center Education Digital Center in 1992 (available on YouTube) where he mentions that:

The talk is the whole point because I am dealing with a culture that has oral tradition. These stories mean something different to these people. They are not just passing the time or entertaining themselves, they are creating and preserving themselves. In the oral tradition, stories are the way history gets passed down, so they better be told right. . .

This affirms the assumption that the adoption of the oral features of African art in Wilson’s works is by no means accidental or playing any mere aesthetic functional role; for the usage of these or any of the features of African oral art is to portray a culture that these African Americans can identify themselves with. Moreover, by implication, Wilson’s statement could be understood as well to mean that oral tradition—the embodiment of African oral art—gives voice and agency to the African American in the diaspora. Subsequently, oral tradition provides the avenue, like the African griot, to tell the history of the community; a history that is not taken as a mere narrative for amusement but a narrative that captures the soul, essence and the preservation of the people and their communal lives.

The broader theoretical framework that this paper situates its discussion in is African American criticism. Like any other “responsorial theory,” Bressler (2011) postulates that African American criticism is a body of theory that challenges established ideologies, racial boundaries and racial prejudices and this argument is supported by Tyson (2006). Tyson (2006) further explains that though the primary concern of African American criticism is to respond to racial issues in African American literary texts, these racial issues have specific individual issues that lurk underneath. The point then is that, despite the broad racial concern of African American criticism, there are other critical issues that African American criticism helps to understand. This theory keeps expanding in its scope due to the emergence of various theorists and as such, concepts like Marxism, feminism, queerness have all emerged to be a part of this theory but what remains prominent in this body of criticism is its core principles.

One of these tenets of African American literary criticism that is relevant to this work is the focus on Afrocentricity (Tyson, 2006: 366). Tyson explains that the primacy of Afro American literary text is partly on the relationship with African history and culture and by focusing on this aspect, African American literary writers adopt various African cultural or literary arts forms such as orality and folk motifs. These two concepts—orality and folk motifs—are prominent poetic features of African American literary tradition (Tyson, 2006: 385). By orality, Afro American literary writers employ African oral features which include but not limited to the narrative structure of African storytelling. In their adaption of these poetic features from Africa, they either, in terms of narrative structure, use the trickster tale type or the dilemma tale type or any of the narratological principles from Africa. With adopting folk motifs, African Americans use various representative character types and folk practices such as (African) spirituality, interluding conversations with folk songs and the likes.

Another tenet of African American criticism that is essential to this discussion is material determinism. Underneath racial discussions which is the primary concern of Afro American criticism is the idea of profiteering and in this sense, Tyson (2006:371) posits that “racism has many pay-offs for whites.” Moreover, material determinism concerns itself with the idea that an individual’s judgment—moral, intellectual, cultural—is based on material factors, a preoccupation that Ayi Kwei Armah, the post-colonial literary writer would refer to as “cargoism.”

It is within this understanding of African American literary criticism where the incorporation of African oral poetics and folk practices/attitudes are used by African American writers that is essential to this work. This is because, the theory provides the general basis for formulating this essay’s thesis that the dilemma tale—a literary trope with African origin—provides the framework for reading August Wilson’s play, The Piano Lesson as a dilemma tale.

On methodological approach, this work, first of all identifies the features of the dilemma tale from various sources including Bascom (1975) and Ong (2002). Secondly, the identified features of the dilemma tale are discussed with focus on the relevant passages of the text, The Piano Lesson, and how this, in turn reflects the idea and the presentation of choice as a way of understanding cultural heritage from the perspective of African Americans. Conversely, the discussion is structured in the form that it first discusses the dilemma of the two main characters: Berniece and Boy Willie. Most specifically, instances of characterization of these two major characters that are reflective of the features of the dilemma tale are considered for the discussion.

The Dilemma Tale: Its Literariness, Features, and Relevance

The dilemma tale type is one of the many folktales in the African oeuvre and its structure, features, and relevance to understanding the literary space—of their geography—is essential to human understanding. This tale type has been discussed by a number of scholars including William Bascom. In his 1975 book titled, African Dilemma Tales, he states that:

[they] are prose narratives that leave the listeners with a choice among alternatives, such as which of several characters has done the best, deserves a reward, or should win an argument or a case. . . (Bascom, 1975:1)

Dilemma tale follows the narration of a story that is open ended with multiple choices for the participatory audience to choose from or take a side with. The narrator or the speaker presents the narration without any prejudice; the narration is presented in such a way that whichever side an audience takes, there is a basis for it. The choices that are presented in this tale type are often based on morality, ethics or cultural grounds and the aftermath reward at the end—although there is no end in this tale type—is that it provides the room for alternative views, or choices on a situation. Dependent on the dimension the audience may want to take, each participant is neither right nor wrong. However, the judgment from the audience usually emanates from the grounds that each choice presents. Ethically, a dilemma tale may be judged by the audience based on the moral principle that each audience may prefer.

Structurally, the dilemma tale type has less complex plot structure; a situation where the narration is short with a relatively no denouement (Bascom, 1975). Unlike traditional tale narratives like fairy tales, the dilemma tale type comes with its own simplistic form. The narration opens with an introduction to the central problem where the characters involved, each makes his/her point(s) and then the narrator ends by inviting the audience to an open debate or discussion on which side of the narration or on whose point is ethically/morally or culturally right and the justification(s). Conversely, the narrator presents an unresolved issue that is meant to be debated by the audience (Opoku-Agyemang & Asempasah, 2006). This other side of the narration makes the dilemma tale to be opened again for another discussion for while the main narration ends, it opens up for another discussion (Bascom, 1975).

According to Bascom (1975:14), “two broad categories of dilemma tales may be distinguished.” The first category involves the competition where the audience are required to make a judgment and this judgment usually comes in the form of stating one’s stand on the strength of the narrative character. The second category involves the situation where the narrator usually resolves the dilemma and “involve[s] moral or ethical judgments.” This particular category, according to Bascom sheds light on cultural norms and values and also states that “there is no sharp dividing line between these two categories” (Bascom, 1975:15). The narrative structure of the dilemma tale is in two folds; the first part involves the actual tale or the narration. In this structural part, the narrator tells the tale as it is and leaves it to the audience to take their own stand. The second part involves the discussion that ensues after the narration. For Bascom (1975), when the narration ends, it does not end entirely but leads to further deliberations. Another characteristic feature of the dilemma tale is its interrogative formula at the end of the narration. At the end of every narration, the audience are left with a thought-provoking question—either explicitly or implicitly—and its answer is dependent on the side that the audience may choose.

At the end of every narration of a dilemma tale, the implication goes beyond the mere participation of the audience in the tale but as Bascom (1975, p. 3) succinctly put it, “it is their intellectual function and their relevance to ethical standards. . .that make dilemma tales interesting.” The point worth noting is that after the narration, the solicitation of the audience in the participation of the tale provides the avenue for an intellectual interaction where each participant makes his/her stand and provides a justification for such a stand. This involves an intellectual exercise for it allows the audience to select among alternatives and construct a persuasive argument. On the ethical grounds, the dilemma tale type allows for knowing the alternative available and questioning the ethics of a community. Moreover, the dilemma tale can be considered as an interpretive paradigm. According to Opoku-Agyemang and Asempasah (2006), the characteristics of the dilemma tale renders it necessary to engage in the politics of interpretation since as an oral art which does not end, the dilemma tale provides a multiplicity of interpreting a text.

Contrary to Bascom’s (1975:3) assertion that “. . .dilemma tales have little literary merit,” Opoku-Agyemang & Asempasah (2006) demonstrate that this claim may not necessarily apply to all literature. They assert that the dilemma tale is a literary product and as such, it gets the reader involved in the meaning making process of the literary text. Due to the complicity of interpretation, they claim, the dilemma tale type allows for “a simultaneous freeing of voice and the creation of multiple perspectives.” The “literary merit” of the dilemma tale type therefore implicitly lies in its applicability as an interpretive framework for literary texts (Opoku-Agyemang and Asempasah, 2006).

The narrative structure a writer uses affords him/her the textual space to convey the intended message. The dilemma tale therefore, provides the literary space to explore the presentation of the issue of choice for or against the preservation of historical legacy in Wilson’s The Piano Lesson due to its multifaceted points of view that it brings on board to narration. Moreover, as an African American literary text that seeks to project the engagement of Afro Americans and their history through multiple perspectives, it is not accidental that the dilemma tale is the choice to be used—for the Afrocentricity of the text—to explore this complex issue.

“The Piano is A Piece of Wood”: Boy Willie and His Choice

One recurrent issue in the play, The Piano Lesson, is the apprehension of African Americans’ historical past and to explore this theme, the dilemma tale becomes the narrative framework that Wilson uses to foreground this issue. The narrative tells the alternative receptions of “the piano” by Boy Willie and his sister, Berniece. This piano is left with them after their parents and grandparents died for it and now it is in the care of Berniece, but Boy Willie would want to trade it for a piece of land from the Sutters—the Charles’ former slave owners—while Berniece disapproves that decision. August Wilson frames this narrative as a dilemma tale for while Boy Willie wants to sell the piano, his sister, Berniece wants it to be kept as a family legacy.

What the narrative of the play reveals is that August Wilson uses the dilemma tale to frame the problematics of choice on the part of Boy Willie and the principle of the dilemma tale that foregrounds this decision is the alternative sides that dilemma tale presents. This becomes a relevant tool for the playwright for it allows him to present the complex daily choices that the ordinary African American makes with regards to what his/her historical legacy means to him/her. Boy Willie then becomes an epitome of one section of African Americans to whom ancestral history or legacy is a material motif that could be traded off. The history/legacy in question, in this instance, is the piano.

The piano functions as a mnemonic device for the transmission of oral history (Opoku-Agyemang & Asempasah, 2006) and this could be understood as the motif for the ancestral history of Afro Americans for through Doaker, we come to the understanding that “ . . .to understand about the piano, you got to go back to slavery time” (p. 22). The piano becomes the metaphor of the history of the Charles with whose lineage Boy Willie shares. But from his perspective, history, legacy or tradition is multifaceted and for him, legacy is to be materialized into monetary benefit. For he says,

I’m supposed to build on what they left me. You can’t do nothing with that piano sitting up here in the house. That’s just like if I let them watermelons sit out there and rot (p. 27).

The deep-seated logic in this statement is that, for Boy Willie, his decision on the selling of the piano is based on the premise that tradition should evolve and by evolving, it should be at the material benefits of its adherents. This reveals one side of what Allred (2006) refers to as the “problematic role of inheritance in African American history and culture” for he observes that one of the critical dialectics in African American discourse is the radical economic consciousness of Afro Americans. This idea of proprietary consciousness on the part of Afro Americans is prevalent as well as evident in not only Wilson’s play but in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun where Walter Lee Younger would go to any extreme end to invest his dead father’s insurance cheque in his own liquor store. The aspect of the African American criticism that is realized in this instance is the conscious effort made on the part of Afro Americans to escape economic slavery. Boy Willie’s actions could therefore be interpreted and understood as an attempt to exchange a “monetarily relevant but idle motif” for what could lead to his financial freedom (land). After all, this piano in question was taken from the Sutters’ premises by Doaker and Wining Boy on the Fourth of July, 1911 (p. 23). The successful attempt to take the piano from the Sutters’ premises is symbolic of the Charles’ struggle to gain freedom and most importantly, this cultural cum historical freedom occurred on 4th July, 1911, a date synonymous to the Independence Day of the United States of America. By implication therefore, Boy Willie wants to be independent and his independence is framed by his particular sight on owning a land through the profits he will make from the sale of “the piano.”

In the narration, it can be argued that August Wilson is more interested in the essence of history and its effect on the characters rather than the politics of which of the siblings is right or wrong. This way, in the case of Boy Willie, he gives him enough textual space to formulate his argument and basis for wanting to sell the piano—a motif understood to be a representation of the family’s ancestral tradition and history. This narrative structure is a prototypical feature of the dilemma tale where each party is given the space to formulate his or her argument and, in this instance, Boy Willie has the space to tell why he wants to sell the piano.

Moreover, the dilemma tale as a narrative architecture allows for the deliberation(s) on Boy Willie’s position to sell the piano. This structural form of the dilemma tale allows for the playwright’s employment of multi-perspectival points of view. This choice for multiple perspectives leads to seeing different angles of the argumentation from each character in the play. Doaker, for instance appears to remain neutral on which of his niblings’ side to take; Wining Boy, on the other hand makes his position clear that that piano is not going to be sold; Avery appears to suggest that it can be used in the church.

Again, legacy is framed, problematized, and presented as an agent of exorcism in the narration. This is another angle of Boy Willie’s argument that forms part of the unresolved narration. African American culture is known to be a fusion of African and American cultures and the former, turns to feature, and prioritize the efficacy of spirituality. Like what John Mbiti, the African philosopher and theologian said, “the African is notoriously religious” (Mbiti, 1970:1) and this religious notoriety on the part of the African transcends to its members in the diaspora for they have undergone religious consciousness that pegs them on mystifying situations that are seemingly odd to them. On the basis of constructing his argument to persuade his sister to sell the piano, Boy Willie retorts that “[I]f I was you I’d get rid of it. That’s the way to get rid of Sutter’s ghost. Get rid of that piano” (p. 8). This point from Boy Willie does not only demonstrate his materialistic impression about tradition, it also foregrounds his mythological perception about the meaning for tradition and legacy. Underneath the childish undertone of this plea from Boy Willie is the thinking that spirituality permeates the sub-conscious minds of the African American. Partly African by ancestral lineage, Afro Americans, through this narration, are understood as a reflection of Africans that would sacrifice one important thing to get rid of another equally important one. For Boy Willie, sacrificing the piano means an end to experiencing the torturous frightening appearance of Mr. Sutter.

Moreover, Boy Willie’s argument situates well in the aspect of dilemma tale as a narrative technique where an aspect of the conflict of the narration is seen to be unresolved and thereby leading to further discussion(s). He premodifies his central point with a condition (if I was you. . .)—making more room for the interrogation of his point—and then mystifies the piano as an exorcist image that can exorcise the ghost of Sutter from their house. The primordial justification for Boy Willie’s materialistic conception of “the piano” stems first from this mythological association with the musical object. As spirituality becomes the center of this particular argument by Boy Willie, he does not only extend the boundaries of his reasons for wanting to sell the piano, he as well presents or opens up another discussion on the African American’s conceptualization of spiritism. Part of the answer then lies in John Mbiti’s claim about Africans and their strong association with religion. The African’s religious notoriety cannot be fully healed.

By implication then, the piano from Boy Willie’s point of view becomes a pretext on which a conclusive understanding could be made on the recognition, and on the side of African Americans and their meaning to (African) religion. August Wilson therefore uses the dilemma tale type to unlock this passive apprehension of religion that is constitutive of the historical past of African Americans. Nonetheless, it establishes the idea of interpreting the past of African Americans with a recognition of spirituality that is in itself Afro-centered. In the stage direction at the final part of the act two, the author says:

It is in this moment, from somewhere old, that BERNIECE realizes what she must do. She crosses to the piano. She begins to play. The song is found piece by piece. It is old urge to song that is both a commandment and a plea with each repetition it gains in strength. It is intended as an exorcism and a dressing for battle. A rustle of wind blowing across two continents (p. 56).

From the above, therefore, it can be summed up to say that Boy Willie’s choice on what “the piano” is to him is clear; a two continental mytheme that embodies first the material aspect of a people’s tradition and secondly, a reduced piece of musical instrument that can be traded for something (like land) that when you get “you’ll find everything else fall right into place” (p. 48). August Wilson therefore presents this side of Africa Americans choice on what legacy is through the dilemma tale as a narrative technique.

“The Piano” As the Soul of the People: Berniece’s Choice

The dilemma tale as an interpretive narrative framework presents varying perspectives or different points of view (Opoku-Agyemang & Asempasah, 2006) and by this, it provides the blueprint to appreciate the side of Berniece’s reason for not turning the “The Piano” into a materialistic motif for economic benefit(s). It affords Wilson the road map to present the voice of Berniece on what legacy, tradition and ancestral history mean to her.

The meaning of legacy, to Berniece is more complex than the simplistic reduction of it to a tangible material stuff. This complexity arises partly as a result of the complex history of the African Americans and partly because of the reconstitution of their human experiences which is a patchwork of two cultures—a fusion of African and American cultures.

Historically, as it is narrated by Doaker, the uncle of Berniece and Boy Willie, the piano is an exchange, a pawn and the personhood of the Charles. This way, the piano is the representation of “the self” of an entire generation and leasing it out in exchange of money to buy another thing—land—which is understood from the narrative, to be the same pawn shop at which this same generation’s ancestors are sold off is a more complex a situation than it might be understood. For Berniece, she interprets the past, history, tradition and legacy to be non-negotiable on the monetary level of it. Her first statement on the topic of the selling of the piano is “I ain’t selling that piano” (p. 14) and this suggests her assertive stand when it comes to their family’s history.

Berniece’s attitude towards legacy is thus interpreted to mean that heritage, legacy or the history of a people is meant to be preserved, and kept and not to be monetized, or sold. This attitude of Berniece is thus framed within the context of the dilemma tale which makes it possible to question the ethical or moral stands of Berniece’s choice. So, the problem that may arise from Berniece’s decision can be framed and questioned in the light of as to what essence is history if it is not known or it is ambivalent? Or of what importance is tradition to a people when they least experienced this precept that has come down to them as a tradition? These questions solicit the response that is carved in Berniece’s statement that:

Money can’t buy what that piano cost. You can’t sell your soul for money. It won’t go with the buyer. It’ll shrivel and shrink to know that you ain’t taken on to it. But it won’t go with the buyer (p.26)

The dialectics of Berniece is that tradition transcends monetary value; it is not sentimental although it has element of sentimental values and that letting it go is primarily betraying yourself and the very essence of your living to a masked person who only cares about wrecking you and your image of “self.” It as well raises the concern of the maintenance and preservation of tradition. For Berniece, “Mama Ola polished [this] piano with her tears for seventeen years” (p. 27) and what this suggests is that, she (Mama Ola) maintained the tradition of accepting but defiling their formerly slavery experience. The proper appropriation of the piano—their tradition—then is to keep it for posterity and eschew any form of monetizing it hence, it loses its essence while in the hands of the buyer who may not care or be ignorant about what he has bought and what it means to those people he bought it from.

The essence of Berniece’s argument is therefore not in the recognition of the piano as a musical instrument. However, it is to recognize tradition as a lived collective experience of a people because tradition is not created but lived for the Charles lived prior to the Sutters pawning the piano from Mr. Nolander. This way, the piano is just symbolic of the lived experience of the Charles who were exchanged for that musical instrument. The more deeply the dilemma lies in the choice for the Sutters exchanging the lives of their slaves for “a musical instrument” and what that instrument—music—stands for in the lives of these “slaves.” Music is an important aspect in the lives of African Americans and the choice for replacing the lives of human beings with a musical instrument meant something more problematic and complex than we may take it literally. Werner (1994) for instance observes that music serves as a useful resource for exploring August Wilson’s negotiation of the African experience and as such, it offers a healing vision.

Due to the open endedness of the dilemma tale framework, it thus makes it possible for Berniece to also articulate her point on what tradition and cultural history mean to her. And for her, tradition is the very essence of the African American’s lives that needs to be maintained and not monetized.

Conclusion

The characteristics of dilemma tale manifesting as a narrative framework make it possible for the interpretation of the choices made regarding what tradition mean to the siblings, Boy Willie and Berniece. As an interpretive tool, Wilson draws the reader into the creative meaning making process, an act that is parallel to the structural feature of the dilemma tale that allows for the audience to make their own judgment based on a presented issue—in this case, in a literary work. August Wilson therefore uses this characteristic feature of the dilemma tale to involve his audience of his play, The Piano Lesson, to question the ethical and moral basis as well as judge the choices that each character makes towards what legacy means to him or her. Alternatively, these choices are framed in the narrative to be a complex one in such a way that the narrative ends but it opens up to further deliberations as to which of the siblings’ choice is essential.

The discussion has attempted to reveal that the lesson in a form of choice that the piano presents is binary; it is first of all a piece of musical instrument that can be monetized and this position is reflected in the choice that Boy Willie makes. For him, legacy, tradition or history should be built upon monetarily and not to be mummified as an edifice without any economic benefit. This choice, through African American criticism theory leads to the understanding and the idea of escaping economic slavery on the part of African Americans living in the diaspora. Second, the dilemma tale as an interpretive narrative framework makes it possible to interpret the alternative meaning for legacy being understood as an heirloom. This side of the argument is also reflective in the case that Berniece presents in the narrative. The piano, to her is symbolic of the lived experiences of her ancestors and as such, it is the soul of her family and hence cannot be exchanged for money.

The open-ended narrative structure of the play therefore complicates the choices on what legacy means to the African American. This form of narrative structure is not accidental for it has its own inherent cultural relevance that can be traced to African orality. It is an aspect of orality where tradition is interpreted to be evolving; not stagnant but moves with time to be ambivalent. As Tony Morrison clearly stated,

You don’t end a story in the oral tradition. . .you can have the little message at the end, your little moral, but the ambiguity is deliberate because it doesn’t end. It’s an ongoing thing and the reader or the listener is in it to think. (Gates & Appiah, 1984 as cited in Opoku-Agyemang & Asempasah, 2006)

What the narrative of The Piano Lesson achieves succinctly is to first complicate what tradition or legacy means by presenting it in a dilemma structure. Secondly, it involves the audience readers in the meaning process and finally, the reader is led to thinking about the critical issue of what tradition means to the African American. As stated earlier, the essence of dilemma tale, in this regard is not to determine whose choice is right or wrong. Instead, the deployment of the dilemma tale is to question the ethical and moral basis for each choice that is made about what tradition means. The usage of the dilemma tale helps Wilson to give his characters, who are symbolic of the African American community, a voice to re-imagine themselves.