Character analysis
Avery Brown
in The Piano Lesson by August Wilson
Avery Brown is a supporting character in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson (1987), a drama set in Pittsburgh that delves into Black heritage, trauma, and the struggle between past and future. A former sharecropper from the South who has reinvented himself in the North, Avery works as an elevator operator while pursuing his calling as a self-ordained preacher—a vocation inspired by a vivid dream involving three hobos, a sheep, and a path leading to a city of light. His journey represents one vision of Black upward mobility: leaving behind the rural past, establishing institutions, and gaining respectability through faith and hard work.
Avery's most significant role is as Berniece's suitor. He persistently courts her, encouraging her to move beyond the grief of her late husband Crawley and marry him, even offering to make her the first lady of his new congregation. His proposal comes from a sincere place, but it misses the mark regarding Berniece's emotional struggles; she consistently deflects his advances, and his inability to connect with her romantically underscores the play's theme of unresolved trauma preventing progress.
Avery's most crucial moment unfolds during the climax when he is asked to perform an exorcism of Sutter's Ghost. Equipped with his Bible and holy water, he attempts the ritual but ultimately fails—the ghost does not respond to his institutional, future-oriented Christianity. It's only when Berniece plays the piano and invokes her ancestors that the spirit is finally driven away. Avery's failure emphasizes Wilson's message that true spiritual power comes from embracing, rather than fleeing, ancestral memory.
Connected characters
- Berniece Charles
Avery is Berniece's persistent suitor and would-be husband. He urges her to remarry, join his congregation, and move forward with life, but his well-meaning pressure exposes how deeply she is still imprisoned by grief and trauma. Their relationship dramatizes the gap between pragmatic optimism and unhealed sorrow.
- Sutter's Ghost
Avery attempts to exorcise Sutter's Ghost at the play's climax, representing the power of institutional Christianity against ancestral hauntings. His failure — the ghost refuses to leave until Berniece plays the piano — signals that his forward-looking faith lacks the rootedness needed to confront the family's specific historical wound.
- Boy Willie Charles
Avery and Boy Willie share a surface goal — both want Berniece to engage with life rather than remain frozen — but their motivations differ sharply. Boy Willie wants to sell the piano for land; Avery wants Berniece as a wife and congregant. They are parallel figures of Black male aspiration who ultimately cannot resolve Berniece's crisis for her.
- Doaker Charles
Doaker is a steady, skeptical presence in the household where Avery visits. Doaker's grounded, unsentimental worldview quietly contrasts with Avery's ministerial ambition, though the two share a mutual respect as older, settled men navigating the Charles family's volatility.
- Maretha
Avery has offered to baptize Maretha, Berniece's daughter, signaling his desire to integrate himself into the family's future. This gesture underscores his vision of a new, church-centered life for Berniece and her child, separate from the burdens of the piano and the past.