The Piano Lesson Analysis

You may work with another student on the following. All work is due at the end of class. If you finish early, you may move on to the post above.

QUESTION ONE: Select two characters from the cast list. As you read, identify the motivation of each of your chosen characters. Be aware of how motivation creates complications, conflict, and characterization. Select from:

• Doaker
• Boy Willie
• Berniece
• Lymon
• Maretha
• Avery
• Wining Boy
• Grace

QUESTION TWO: Acts usually end at a high point (or crisis: a crucial or decisive turning point or situation in a plot).

• How does Wilson end his first act? 
• How does an essential question linger in the minds of the audience? i.e. what will bring the audience back from the intermission ready for more? 
• What questions have been left unanswered?

QUESTION THREE: In a second act, characters are generally developed even more through characterization. Additionally, in contemporary plays there is usually a reversal of fortune (someone who is about to win his/her motive suddenly meets opposition that we might not have considered before…although clues to such an event can be found in the first act).

• Can you find examples of a reversal of fortune in the second act. What clues were we given in Act I that suggests that this reversal was coming?
• What is your chosen characters' dark moment? A dark moment for a character is their lowest end--when things look their worst for that character.
• What is the character's enlightenment? An enlightenment is the sudden understanding of how to get up from the character's dark moment. How does your character's enlightenment lead to the climax?
• And then, finally, do you consider the ending pleasing, satisfactory, acceptable? 
• How might you change the ending if you were writing the play?