This is certainly suggested in Boy Willie's ruthless and callous demeanor with respect to an heirloom for which his father gave his life. Doaker reports at one point that "he say he gonna cut it in half and go on and sell his half. They been around here three days trying to sell them watermelons. They trying to get out to where the white folks live but the truck keep breaking down. They go a block or two and it break down again. They trying to get out to Squirrel Hill and can't get around the corner. He say soon as he can get that truck empty to where he can set the piano up in there he gonna take it out of here and go sell it." (Wilson, 29)

Boy Willie's representation of the blind ambition to advance casts this path in a particularly negative light, but also denotes...
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