Piano

‘The Pianist’ is a cinematic masterpiece by the Polish director Roman Polanski. One of the key ideas that appear throughout much of the film is that of ‘hope being instrumental in our survival’. This idea is portrayed through Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish pianist, as he struggles for survival in Warsaw as everybody that he once knew and everything that he once had is lost. The idea of ‘hope being instrumental in our survival’ is worth learning about as it allows the audience to realise the importance of hope in todays society – and to understand how Polanski uses music to symbolise ‘hope’ for Szpilman in the film.

Polanski effectively utilises an array of visual and oral text features such as music, dialogue, and lighting to build further emphasis on this theme. ‘The Pianist’ is an honest depiction of the events that occurred during the Holocaust, through the eyes of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Jewish concert pianist living in Warsaw, Poland. As the movie starts we see him in a radio studio beautifully playing the piano. But then the tanks start shooting, the bombs start falling, and the studio is damaged. He can no longer avoid the rapidly escalating situation. Germany is invading his homeland.

His time as a concert pianist and radio performer has come to a sudden end. The first half of the movie focuses on the impact of the war on him and his family’s lives and the suffering of others, whilst the second half purely revolves around Szpilman’s struggle for survival and the hope in which he draws from music. Polanski heavily emphasises this idea, getting across the message that Szpilman would not be alive if were not for the hope in which he holds to – even if at times if at times it is by a tiny thread. The most obvious feature used to enhance the idea of ‘hope being instrumental in our survival’ is that of music.

After being forced to desert his family and having to live in isolation with his survival being questioned almost every day, it is perhaps only the thoughts of music that keep Szpilman going. This is idea becomes more apparent when Szpilman discovers a piano in one of the flats he is hiding in. He is unable to play because he will give himself away so we instead watch his fingers move across the air above the piano’s keys as whilst the sound plays in his head and too the viewer. Throughout the film we also see Szpilman pretending to play the piano as he taps his finger across his legs.

It is moments such as these that help to maintain Szpilman’s willingness to survive by keeping silent, but also how piano gives fills him with the hope that is instrumental in his survival. In other scenes such as when a German officer asks Szpilman to play piano for him, and allows him to live because of his immense talent we begin to realise that Szpilman’s hope – music, does not only help him to survive mentally, but also physically as he can share the gift that he has to others. It is also important to note that Polanski only music by the Polish composer, Chopin is used throughout ‘The Pianist’.

His sad and evocative music brings upon a sad mood, yet one with a hint of hope and with this, the director can more vividly express his ideas a way that dialogue or action cannot. Another oral feature used throughout the film to express the director’s idea of ‘hope being instrumental to our survival’ is dialogue. Whilst Szpilman’s actions are usually used to express the director’s ideas, there are multiple instances where dialogue is used effectively to express them. In one scene around a third of the way into the film, Mr. Lipa, a businessman comes round to the Szpilman’s family’s house to make an offer on their piano.

The majority of the family think the amount of money he is offering for such a beautiful piano is absurd, but when he says, “2,000 and my advice is to take it. What will you do when you’re hungry? Eat the piano? ” Szpilman comes to the realisation that whilst music is what he needs to survive mentally, it is in fact food that he needs to survive physically and accept this offer. From this point in the film onwards, Polanski distinguishes physical survival from mental survival for Szpilman and begins to enforce the idea of ‘hope is instrumental to our survival’.

We learn that Szpilman will go to all efforts to survive, shown with dialogue, “[taking off his watch] Here, sell this. Food is more important than time” but it is his hope that he will one day be able to play piano again and be happy that is instrumental to his survival. This is shown later in the film when a German Officer asks him what he’s going to do when the war is over and he replies, “Play piano again”. It is the simple, but effective use of dialogue such as this that mimic realistic situations in comparison to the Hollywood theatrics used in other films that establish an exaggerated, bleak atmosphere.

Lighting is another visual feature that is used to good effect to emphasise the idea of hope being instrumental in (Szpilman’s) survival. Throughout the second half of the film, where Szpilman is trapped within solitude – with the hope in which he holds on to hanging by the thread; Polanski uses dark and obsolete colours with a bluish tint that combined create a very strange and desolate atmosphere. While the dark obsolete lighting clearly portrays Szpilman’s pessimism, it is the bluish tint evident that is like the ‘silver lining’ and shows the viewer the hope that Szpilman is still holding on to.

In one particular scene, where Szpilman plays piano for the first time in months to a Nazi Officer, moonlight with the distinct blue tint is cast over the piano and his hands as he plays. Polanski creates this effect to make the link for the audience that music is the hope that has been instrumental to his (Szpilman’s) survival and is the tiny thread that he has been hanging onto when everybody he knows and everything that he once had has been taken from him.

In the film ‘The Pianist’, Polanski effectively employed the use of the visual and oral features: music, dialogue and lighting to better communicate his idea of ‘hope being instrumental in our survival’. These three features come together to allow the audience to truly realise the importance of hope being the sole factor that keeps Szpilman alive, and that his hope is symbolised through music. Polanski so skilfully uses these features to show rather than tell the importance of this idea and through this it is little wonder that the movie is considered a modern classic.

Writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth century were the voice of the people and from their words; one can feel the smell of revolution against prejudices of the contemporary society.

They embossed real life in their words, which they had seen and experienced and showed the majestic human spirit who always find themselves in the midst of conflicts arising partly from the Society and partly from the inner self and consciousness. In the nineteenth century was born among the many writers, a play writer that broke the shackles of the dominant Patriarchy society of the eighteenth century to give voice to the women behind the four walls of their Doll House.

A father of modern realistic drama, Henrik Ibsen, was a Norwegian play writer who was charged of being scandalous only because he had examined the realities of life that lay behind many facades and social obequities.

Another of the same genere was Wilson who won the Pulitzer Prize of 1992 due to his enduring words that raised the consciousness of the Blacks. Spent his childhood also in poverty in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where he lived with his parents and five siblings, he made his goal to shed the light on the sufferings that their ancestors had to go through among younger generations of blacks.

Wilson himself realized this fact that his parents had withheld from them the knowledge of even greater hardships that they had endured themselves. He once told New York Times in 1984, “My generation of blacks knew very little about the past of our parents, they shielded us from the indignities they suffered.” (Gale Research, Autobiography of Wilson, Para.7). His Piano Lesson was one among his many works that eludes us to the greater revelations- the revelations of ourselves, and our association with our golden heritage.

            Both Ibsen and Wilson were the mouthpieces of the suppressed and subjugated. In 1871 before Ibsen even started his play, a real incident touched his soul. One day Ibsen got infatuated by a Norwegian girl named Laura Petersen, whom he called skylark. But in 1872 Laura married a Danish schoolmaster, Victor Kieler, but as soon as she married, her husband Victor contracted tuberculosis, but as they were poor they could not manage to go, so without her husband’s knowledge Laura arranged a loan. With this money they went to Italy and Victor soon recovered. But later the humiliation that Laura suffered was unbearable.

When she was forced to tell the truth to her husband regarding the loan, she was abused and Victor straightforwardly found her unfit to be his wife. Laura could not tolerate and she had a nervous breakdown, but in return Victor admitted her in a public asylum.

This incident prompted Ibsen to show the Society its true face. Thus emerged from his immense delicate soul, the master the most beautiful play, A Doll House; a play which is a struggle against the tyrannical and dehumanizing oppression of women in a society which frowned upon the women who asserted themselves for individuality.

Nora is suppressed in number of ways by her husband Torvald and tyrannical social conventions. Torvald is a smug bank manager and with his job he has number of responsibilities. He treats his wife as if she is her responsibility and a mere product. Torvald is more worried about his reputation but he least cares about her.

Though Nora is financial well off yet there is not a single incidence in her life when she does not face rebuke by her husband. On the onset their marriage life seems to be satisfied, yet time and again Nora’s heart was burning like fire seeking Independence from the subjugation of her husband. Yet she fulfills her duty as a wife, and here is the hidden irony. Nora also took loan to save her husband’s life, but instead of credit she gets only rebuke from her husband.

As the play moves forward, she realizes how she has to remain subjugated in her parents house and now as a wife too, and how her marriage is only a mere game of a Doll, so unrealistic. So when Helmer tells Nora, “Because such an atmosphere of lies infects and poisons the whole life of a home.

Each breath the children take in such a house is full of the germs of evil,” Nora decides to discontinue her inauthentic role of a doll and closed the doors of domesticity to seek out her individuality, but that too she could attain at the cost of her children.

She has to leave her children behind so that they do not get corrupted. In the end of the play, her assertion comes straightaway from her mouth  when she says, “I’ve been your wife-doll here, just as at home I was Papa’s doll-child.”(1608).

This is Nora and theare are Boy Willie and his sister, Bernice in the Piano Lessons who learned to cherish their heritage and assert their rights as human beings. Piano Lesson has a quintessential plot that revolves around a conflict.

It appears on the surface that the conflict that is going on is between Boy Willie and his sister, Bernice, but hidden beneath lies the conflict for preserving their heritage and culture, which is in the form of Piano. Boy Willie wants to sell Piano to buy a land for good fortune. What he was visualizing was the future which is the dream of Westernized world of younger generations, whereas Bernice wants to stay firm to her roots, and declines to part with the heritage.

The piano was reminder of her past. It was her father’s piano, who died retrieving it from the Sutter’s home. The unique thing about Piano are the engravings of the history of Charles family on it and for Bernice the souls of their ancestors reside in the Piano. It is the Piano only that joins them to their ancestors.

The story of Piano dates back to the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Charles family were slaves, their owners Sutters sold two members of the family for a piano. Sutters then got the Charles pictures of Charles family engraved on Piano, but the carpenter carved whole history of the family into it. This instrument was then stolen by their father who was later killed by the Sutters in retribution.

With this piano, August Wilson firmly evokes into the heart of the today’s generation the reality of the  black people in American Society and how they assimilate into the White people, it simply means to give up their black culture and adopt the Westernized ways.

When the Doll House was staged in 1879, the spirit of revolution was ravaging like a fire in Europe and writers inculcated in their writings new thoughts and new perceptions of life which totally defied the old conventions. Wth his colloquial language, Ibsen inserts the burning passion of Independent thoughts which allows the A Doll’s house to achieve laurels inspite of criticism.

On the other hand, The Piano Lesson was set in Pittsburgh in 1930 when there was Great Depression which became historical background for the play. At that time, the black migration was also at the peak. They were migratinog from south to north in search of better life.

This all inspired Wilson but inspiration of the play, he got from Romare Bearden painting by the same name. In the painting was shown a teacher and a student in a form of an an allegory which means that how African Americans should associate themselves with their past.

Thus in their writings, inconsequent streams  of thoughts, longings, apprehensions, and musings pour out as they arise in the mind of all and thus emerge the consciousness of Individuality, Freedom, and Independence.

WORKS CITED

1. Gale, “Biography of August Wilson” Internet (Last Updated: Available: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~awilson/bio.html, May 11, 2007

2.   Spark Notes, “The Piano Lesson by August Wilson” Internet Available:

http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/piano/context.html, May 11, 2007

3. Templeton, Joan. Ibsen’s Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997

4. Wikipedia, “A Doll’s House” Internet (Last Updated May 08, 2007) Available:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Doll’s_House, May 11, 2007

Words from the writers’ literary artifacts touches rhythm of the complexities of life and make us realize what we are and where we stand in this world and in the Society around us.

From the words of the Writers, immerses the rich flavor of the real meaning of the life and the voice of the repressed and subjugated. Ibsen and Wilson reveal the majestic human spirit in their capacity of striving and suffering.. On one hand, Doll house is in reality a Doll House for women subjugated and repressed in the Patriarchy society of 18th century and on the other hand is the Piano lesson which is a voice of the Blacks who in the eighteenth century were kept as emotionless and subjugated slaves.

In A Doll’s House, Ibsen paints the sacrificial role that woman has to play and the way protagonist of the play has to exert her feeling. In Piano lesson, the real conflict lies in the efforts of the Protagonists to maintain their family, heritage and exploration in the back drop of all the hardships their ancestors have to undergo.

The piano is a representative of the culture and heritage and is a center of conflict for the protagonist whether to sell it for buying land previously worked by their slave ancestors or remains in the family’s possession as a heritage.

Ibsen presented “A Doll house” in 1879 in the backdrop of the Victorian Society, the society wherein woman has to subjugate her according to the husband’s will.

For the nineteenth century audience, the mere idea of woman leaving aside her marriage wows was considered as sacrilegious and, women abandoning her children were against the basic concepts of womanhood. In the end of the play Society won, as Ibsen was forced to write alternative ending of the play when it was staged in Germany.

Nora as a wife of a banker has to maintain her relationship with her kids and her husband who both tries to control the family.

In the play, Nora is a financially well off as compared to the other female characters in the play, but she leads a very difficult life because society demands dominant partner in Torvald, who issues decrees and condescends to Nora.

On the other hand, in their hard times in order to save her husband’s life, she goes to the extent of forging her father’s name on the document for money but hides it from him. When the truth unfolds, he reacts with disgust and horror. He is only worried about his reputation but refuses to accept the fact it was her love that prompted her to do so. And due to this reason, Nora is considered as a cheat and her deception, left vulnerable to Krogstad’s blackmail.

It was the real incident in Ibsen’s life that prompted him to write a play. It was 1871, eight years before Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House, Ibsen met a Norwegian girl named Laura Petersen, whom he called skylark and was infatuated by her.

In 1872, Laura married a Danish schoolmaster, Victor Kieler, and her nightmares started. Victor contracted tuberculosis, and his doctors prescribed warmer climate for him but as they were poor, Victor became hysterical. At this Laura arranged a loan without her husband’s knowledge. With this money they went to Italy and Victor soon recovered. When the time came for Laura to repay the loan, they did not have the money to pay and Laura tried to send forged check but it was discovered and Laura finally had to tell the truth to her husband, who found her unfit as a wife.

She had nervous breakdown, and in return Victor admitted her in a public asylum. Touched by this story, in the notes to The Dolls house, he said, “A woman cannot be herself in modern society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess female conduct from a male standpoint”. (Yurgaitis, A Doll’s House Synopsis, Para. 15).

The indifferent attitude of Nora’s husband destroyed her illusions and decides to leave him, her children and house in search of truth. She has realized that he is not the noble man she has supposed him. In the words of Isben “Depressed and confused by her faith in authority, she loses faith in her moral right and ability to bring up her children. A mother in contemporary society, just as certain insects go away and die when she has done her duty in the propagation of the race.” (Wikipedia, Para 5)

August Wilson, was himself a black man and as a black man he realized what hardships the blacks had to endure in their lives and as slaves. As Pulitzer Prize winner, he confided in his students at Dartmouth University, “My generation of blacks knew very little about the past of our parents.

They shielded us from the indignities they suffered,” (Dartmouth, Biography of August Wilson, Sidelights Para1) and in a quest to impart the knowledge to the unspoken African American people, he gave to the world “The Piano Lesson” and many other plays.

The characters Berniece and Boy Willie in the Piano Lessons struggle among themselves, Willie wants to sell a Piano to buy a land but Berniece refuses because she had an attachment towards the piano. It was her father’s piano, who died retrieving it from the Sutter’s home. On the piano is engraved the history of Charles family and is only there ancestral property.

The incident happened in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Charles family was slave, their owners Sutters sold two members of the family for a piano. Sutters then called upon master-carpenter in the Charles family and ordered him to carve out the only faces of the sold slaves into the piano, but the carpenter carved whole history of the family into the piano. This instrument was then stolen by Berniece and Boy Willie’s father, but was later killed by the Sutters in retribution.

For Berneice, this piano is a “sacred altar”, considered by ancient African tribes as a crossroad between the living and the dead. It was her belief that by selling Piano, they will loose all the connection with her ancestors and also their protection, which may give the way to Sutter’s ghost to haunt them. Michael Morales too argues that this piano serves as a direct link to the past and is both a “sacred ancestral altar” and a tool to “transmit” oral history.

Through the songs in a Piano, carvings and the words of Willie, August Wilson makes the audience have a deeper look at their forgotten past. At the end of the play Willie reminds Berniece to continue playing the piano and warns her about the worst consequences if she neglects her past again. And along with that Willie left his mark on the piano, by inscribing on it the history of the family’s in readable language with the sole purpose of preservation and continuation of the family’s legacy.

A Literary Analysis of “Piano Man” Music has been a part of human culture for many years. It is embedded deep in our roots, from Native Americans chanting around a fire, to slaves harmonizing while laboring in the fields, to Beatle-mania, to the Backstreet Boys welcoming the new millennium. The great artists of this industry will forever be remembered for their ability to combine moving, soulful lyrics with enchanting melodies, all while reaching millions of individuals in a unique way.

Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” is a perfect example of this melodic combination. Joel’s inspiration for this song came directly from his own experiences. Early in his career, he played a stint as a piano man for a local bar in Los Angeles, California during the early seventies. This piece was created as a “thank you” message to all of the lost people that inspired Joel to get back into the world and to dream big again after his first single failed miserably. His harmony depicts a typical bar scene, packed with down and out drunks and tired, bedraggled businessmen, all trying to find an escape from their stressful, everyday lives.Billy Joel tries to convey the message that everyone is always searching for something more in life, but no matter how much success they have, they will still be filled with loneliness and desire for something else. In “Piano Man,” Billy Joel uses a simple, straightforward syntax, an indirect characterization, and an informal, bittersweet tone to enforce his theme of disappointment and unfulfillment.

At a first glance, the simple syntax used by Billy Joel enforces the simplicity of his message.He is trying to show that these people at the bar represent everyday people. They are lost, looking for something more. They feel alone and are sitting at this bar because it is a safe haven of escape. By keeping his lines short and straightforward, it both relates to the lives of the people and ensures that his message is clearly presented to the reader or listener. For example, the line reading, “Yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness/ but it’s better than drinkin’ alone,” (31-32).Billy Joel clearly describes these men or women being sad and alone, but finding comfort in each-others presence.

Joel is clear in stating how these people feel. The rawness of the lyrics correlates to the lives of these characters. The excerpt “And the waitress is practicing politics/ As the businessmen slowly get stoned,” (29-30) demonstrates this clear-cut and unrefined syntax. Joel is depicting how the waitress may be exploiting herself for the sake of making money and how even businessmen succumb to the stress of everyday life and resort to drugs to try and heal themselves.By putting together two short lines in such a basic form, he is able to ensure that the audience receives his message. By keeping his syntax simple and straightforward, the reader understands that these are everyday, monotonous characters, representing everyday people, all beaten up by life. Also, his simplistic structure backs the simplicity of his message.

When further analyzing the song “Piano Man,” Billy Joel’s intense use of indirect characterization stands out among the other devices in the lyrics.Indirect characterization is defined as the act of creating a character where their traits are revealed either by their words thoughts or actions, by the description of the character’s appearance or background, or by what other characters say and how they react towards this character. As Joel is describing the scene at the bar, he creates very personably, relatable characters by giving a brief insight into the character’s life. For example the lines, “Now Paul is a real-estate novelist/ Who never had time for a wife/And he’s talking with Davy, who’s still in the navy/and probably will be for life,” (25-28). These lines depict a decently successful man (Paul) who has a career, but is alone. His career takes up the majority of his time, leaving none for finding a wife and starting a family. The other character, Davy, is seen as a young man who is enlisted in the navy.

The song describes how he will most likely be in the navy for life. Many people today choose to have a career instead of focusing on family life, like Paul, and these people are most likely feeling the emptiness that this song portrays. The other character, Davy, is also a replica of young men in the armed forces today. They enlist when they are young and feel as if they still have a future, but since the forces are all they have ever known, they choose to re-enlist year after year. The listeners of the song are able to attach themselves and relate to these characters. Another instance where direct characterization is present is in the lines, “ Now John at the bar is a friend of mine/ he gets me my drinks for free/ and he’s quick with a joke or to light up a smoke/ but there’s someplace he’d rather be,” (15-18). John is depicted as a typical small-town bartender, light-hearted and entertaining.

Again, the audience is able to identify with the characters that Joel creates. They might know a Paul or a Davy or a John, or they might find pieces of these characters in themselves. Having the reader be able to feel a personal attachment to these characters makes them feel a personal attachment to the song itself. When the listeners become emotionally involved in the lyrics, feeling as if they know the characters, they begin to share the same emotions that the character is feeling. By using indirect characterization to form round, real life characters Billy Joel is able to emotionally instill the central message of the song into the audience. Since Billy Joel is telling the story of maybe his most influential experiences, he uses a very informal, bittersweet tone. The way the piece is written comes across as a man telling a story to his friend.

His in-formalness is shown in the lines, “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/ and say ‘man, what are you doing here ” (43-44). This line is very bittersweet as well because it is describing how the people at the bar think that this piano man is capable of much more than hanging out with this crowd, but it also shows how the people at this bar have become almost a family. They all know each other and understand each other better than anyone else. They have bonded over their lost dreams and empty hearts. Again, this idea is shown in the verse, “ ‘Well I’m sure I could be a movie star/ If I could get out of this place,’ ” (21-22). These lines also suggest a man who is stuck in this rut but knows he can be something better if he could just find a way to get out.The striking truth and honesty in these lines evoke a feeling of sympathy and understanding in the listener.

The bittersweet tone is shown again in the lines, “Well we’re all in a mood for a melody/ And you’ve got us feeling alright,” (49-50). The people in the bar are sad and depressed and feeling alone, they are looking for an escape, and the piano man provides that for them. The tone in which these line are written creates a sympathetic, understanding mood in the audience that enforces the theme of the song. Billy Joel does a fantastic job of pleasing listeners with his soothing lyrics. The thought that other people, represented by his characters, feel the same emptiness many struggles with today is comforting. By using simple structure, an indirect characterization, and a bittersweet tone, Billy Joel is able to enforce the central message behind his song, “Piano Man. ” He tries to explain to the world that we, as humans, are always trying to search for something better, and yet we never reach that something because we are always filled with a sense of loneliness and emptiness that then results in us looking for a way to escape.