Boy Willie

Boy Willie is a character from the play The Piano Lesson by August Wilson, he is a thirty year old man who happens to be very talkative and is considered to be blunt with his speech and manners. Boy Willie is Berniece’s brother and Doaker’s nephew. Unlike them, he has remained in the South, farming the land that their family worked for generations. He dreams of raising enough cash to buy land from the diminished Sutter family so that he can become an independent farmer rather than a debt-ridden share-cropper. Boy Willie plans to raise the cash by selling a load of watermelons which he brought up from Mississippi with his friend Lymon and the family piano, which he part owns with Berniece. Boy Willie seems like the type of person that is willing to do anything in his power to achieve and/or get want he desires in life.

On pages 81-82 in the play The Piano Lesson he took the initiative to find the man who wanted to buy the piano for eleven hundred and fifty dollars. Personally, we do not like or agree with Boy Willie's point of view because it just seems he is a hard headed, stubborn man who just wants it to be his way and nothing else. For example when he is trying to sell the piano, he is just thinking about himself and is not considering Berniece's and Winning Boy's advice. Saying this, we do not find him interesting simply because all he thinks about is himself. Another factor that we learned about Boy Willie is that he respects his families past in a different way compared to Berniece. He would rather educate his niece Maretha, about her background, having pride of their past will help her hold her head high.

We believe Boy Willie seems like the person you can trust, but the only motive he has in life would be what he benefits from and that can bring on problems. For instance if someone were to ask Boy Willie to do something and if it is something he does not agree with, he can easily change his mind and do something completely different. Boy Willie is different compare to Wining boy's personality. Wining boy gambles, broke, but he honors the piano for what is worth with the family and agrees with Berniece on not selling it. Even though Doaker at a point in the play agrees with Boy Willie on selling the piano, he is different from him. Simply Doaker seems to care for his families past and history. Yet, he also believes that the piano only brings trouble to Berniece and agrees with Boy Willie to sell it. For example, when saw the Ghost of Sutter, Doaker believes that all these paranormal activities will go away if they were to sell the piano since Sutter’s family once owned it.

Therefore, Boy Willie is a character that is selfish and only cares for himself and the success he has in his life. He wants to get rid of a precious belonging of the family so he can be equal to a white man and have power like they do. He believes that he should be equal to a white man regarding how they re treated and how they should be able to own land like the white folks. Boy Willie can be trusted but only with things that interest him on doing because if he doesn’t get anything out of what he is doing he doesn’t do it at all and finds a way to get out of it