The Piano

The Piano tells the story of a mute, Ada McGrath, whose father sells her into marriage. She is shipped off along with her young daughter Flora McGrath. The voice that the people hear is not herspeaking voice, but her mind's voice. Ada stop speaking since she was six years old, expressing herself instead through her piano playing and through sign language and for which her daughter has servedas the interpreter. Flora, it is later learned, is the product of a relationship with a teacher whom Ada believed she could control with her mind, making him love her, but who "became frightened andstopped listening," and thus left her.
Ada, Flora, were deposited on a New Zealand beach by the ship's crew against her angry objections. As there is no one there to meet them, they spend the nightbeach, sheltering under a hoop skirt frame. The following day, Alistair arrives with a Māori crew and his friend Baines, a fellow forester and a retired sailor, who has adopted many of the Māoricustoms, including tattooing his face and socializing with the Māori instead of his own race. There are insufficient men to carry everything and Alistair abandons the piano, and Ada got mad and frustrated.Baines is sexually aroused by Ada's playing to the point that he openly approaches her. Finally, she yields to her own desire one afternoon, and she and Baines have intercourse. Alistair finallybegins to suspect the love affair and after discovering them, he angrily boards up his home with Ada inside when he goes off to work on his timberland. After that interlude, Ada avoids Baines and feignsaffection with Alistair, though her caresses only serve to frustrate him more because when he makes a move to touch her in return, she pulls away. Before Alistair departs on his next journey, he asksAda if she will go to see Baines and he tells her he trusts that she won't go to him while he's gone.
Soon after, Ada sends her daughter with a package for Baines, containing a single piano key with...