Through the book, The Other Side, the author portrays the use of tone, symbolism, and audience in different ways. He uses images and vivid descriptions to show the tone. He also shows ideas of symbolism. The fence plays and important role of how divided they were. The audience is shown in different ways as well. To illustrate, the author uses quotes and gives great descriptions to help determine these three things. Having a tone, symbol, and audience is important in writing and helps your reader understand better. The author does a great job at doing this, by using the characters and their thoughts.
By reading the book, The Other Side, it can be inferred that the tone of the book is informal, casual, and light. It is also happy and sad at the same time. The characters, Clover and Annie, portray a confusing tone throughout the book because they were different colors. The quote, “Once, when we were jumping rope, she
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For example, the passage stated “White people lived on the other side”; “Don’t climb over that fence when you play.” She said it wasn’t safe.” The fence divided the black and white. The parent of the character, Clover, suggested that she should not go over the fence to play because of the white family that lived there. There was no specific reason why, that’s just the way it was. For instance, the passage stated “It rained a lot that summer. On rainy days that girl sat on the fence in a raincoat. She let herself get all wet an acted like she didn’t even care. Sometimes I saw her dancing around in puddles, splashing and laughing.” “Mama wouldn’t let me go out in the rain.” For example, this quote shows how Clover’s mother would not let her go outside and play in the rain, which the character, Annie, did. The fence stayed in the middle of the blacks and whites, showing the controversial signs/ ways of how they were divided. Therefore, the fence was used as a symbol to show the
An example of this symbolism, is the representation of the fence dividing the African Americans houses and the Caucasians houses. “That summer the fence that stretched through our town seemed bigger. We lived in a yellow house on one side of it. White people lived on the other. And Mama said, ‘Don’t climb over that fence when you play.’ She said it wasn’t safe.” This symbolizes the color boundary between the whites and blacks at that time. “When we were too tired to jump anymore, we sat up on the fence, all of us in a long line. ‘Someday somebody’s going to come along and knock this old fence down,’ Annie said. And I nodded. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Someday.’ This line signifies the color boundary diminishing as the people get over their differences and accept one
The play, Fences, in conclusion acquires many interpretations of the “fence” that is mentioned variously. Despite there only being one physical fence, it represents many figurative fences throughout the play. The “fence” is signified as having both positive and negative
The play “Fence” by August Wilson’s has a connection with real world fence. “The yard is a small dirt yard, partially fenced, except for the last scene, with a wooden sawhorse, a pile of lumber, and other fence-building equipment set off to the side. The Opposite is a tree from which hangs a ball made of rags. A baseball bat leans against the tree. Two oil drums serve as garbage receptacles and sit near the house at right to complete the setting” (Wilson 2). He mentions that the fence has three parts open, unopened and cornerstone. The word yard and fence are symbolically represented structure and dream of country, society and Troy’s family.
Fences written by August Wilson is an award winning drama that depicts an African-America family who lives in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania during the 1950’s. During this time, the Mason’s reveal the struggles working as a garbage man, providing for his family and excepting life as is. The end of segregation began, more opportunities for African American people were accessible. Troy, who’s the father the Cory and husband of Rose has shoes fill as a working African America man. He is the family breadwinner and plays the dominant role in the play. Troy’s childhood was pretty rough growing up on a farm of 11 children. Overtime, he realizes the change of society. He builds a friendship fellow sanitation worker, Jim Bono while in the penitentiary. Troy planned to build a fence around his house to control the number of people on his property. The fence also plays a symbolic role throughout the drama. These motives and characteristics control is what makes Troy the friend, father, worker, and husband he is today.
Throughout time there have always been conflicts of morality and injustice. August Wilson wrote this play about issues that were prevalent in the 1950’s but also still are sadly present today. In Fences, there is an abundance of evidence of cultural clashes. In this play these clashes span over racial, generational, and even gender lines and its effects on the characters.
The theme of August Wilson’s play “Fences” is the coming of age in the life of a broken black man. Wilson wrote about the black experience in different decades and the struggle that many blacks faced, and that is seen in “Fences” because there are two different generations portrayed in Troy and Cory. Troy plays the part of the protagonist who has been disillusioned throughout his life by everyone he has been close to. He was forced to leave home at an early age because his father beat him so dramatically. Troy never learned how to treat people close to him and he never gave any one a chance to prove themselves because he was selfish. This makes Troy the antagonist in the story because he is not only hitting up against everyone in the play,
Behind every literary piece is hidden meanings and figures the author strategically hides between the lines of their works. In the play Fences by August Wilson, many symbols and themes hide between the lines in order to make this an amazing drama. One main symbol in this play is the fence being built throughout the storyline. The fence within the story represents the walls that arise between characters, the security Rose wants for her family, and the mending of relationships after Troy’s death.
The fence becomes a representation of the barrier that Troy tries to create between him and mortality. Troy has a fixation on Death. He talks about how Death is an easy “fastball on the outside corner” (I. i). Troy always speaks about how he could easily knock a baseball out of the park. Comparing Death to a fastball shows how Troy thinks that he can continue to always keep Death on the other side of the fence because like a
In the Fences, by August Wilson shows that life of African Americans in the U.S. in the 1950s with the story of Troy and his family. Wilson uses the symbol of the fence to show the desires of each character like Rose’s desire is to keep her family together, Troy’s desire is to keep death out and to be not bound forever, and Bono’s desire is to follow Troy, his best friend, as an example of the right way to live and to be with Rose and Troy who are basically his family. Rose and the other seen characters represent people and show gender roles of the time, like Rose is a housewife, Troy is the provider. Also Cory is the new generation of emotion over responsibility, Gabriel represents the war heros that were permanently disabled from war
August Wilson’s Fences was centered on the life of Troy Maxson, an African American man full of bitterness towards the world because of the cards he was dealt in life amidst the 1950’s. In the play Troy was raised by an unloving and abusive father, when he wanted to become a Major League Baseball player he was rejected because of his race. Troy even served time in prison because he was impoverished and needed money so he robbed a bank and ended up killing a man. Troy’s life was anything but easy. In the play Troy and his son Cory were told to build a fence around their home by Rose. It is common knowledge that fences are used in one of two ways: to keep things outside or to keep things inside. In the same way that fences are used to keep
In the story of “Fences” and also “A Doll House” we will compare the plot of change. Sometimes change is accepted and others it is not. One thing that the reader will become aware of is that times change and people change. Change is a constant thing, whether talking about society as a whole or about the people that make up that society. One thing is for sure and that is that there will always be change. In the story “A Doll House” we will see how change within two main character’s will change the family dynamics of a picture perfect family. The thing that the reader does not expect it the tragic ending that does happen within this picture perfect family. In the story “Fences” we will find how the character’s unwillingness to accept change will ultimately lead to the demise of his family life that he has. Not only does this demise come from his unwillingness to accept change but because he wants change but in very different ways than what society has to offer.
“Jesus be a fence all around me every day. Jesus, I want you to protect me as I travel on my way” (Wilson 1.2.21). The play Fences follows the journey of an African American family, the Maxons, and their struggle to handle the appearance of both physical and metaphorical fences. Fences shows the difficulties that the Maxons face in an attempt to balance love, loss, and laughter. The Maxson family lives in Pittsburgh during the 1950’s, and they meet tensions when searching for equality within their relationships and in their larger community. Throughout the play, tension builds between characters. To portray this tension, the author, August Wilson utilizes the narrative elements of parallel plots through storytelling, developing characters
Throughout history, civilizations have built fences to keep enemies out and keep those they want to protect inside. In society today, people create metaphorical fences in order to fence in their feelings, while others create literal fences in order to keep the unwanted away. In the play Fences, the Maxon family lives in 1950’s America whose love for sports and one another are questioned at times when they need to be together the most. In the play Fences by August Wilson, two main characters Troy and Cory Maxon build a fence, literally and metaphorically, which as the book progresses, becomes a symbol that allows each character to truly understand each other.
The combination of Rose as well as Troy is a more appropriate symbol for the fence; it is the combination of the two characters that creates a stronger representation of a fence. Rose is the driving force that forces Troy build the fence, so in reality it is Rose’s strength that carries the power that Troy needs to create a protective barrier around their home, life, and weaknesses from the outside forces of the world. Rose feels the need for a protective barrier, a fence, which can be built around her home for the protection of her family and her household. Her idea involved keeping the things and people who are important to her inside rather than keeping things and people outside. Troy is the opposite and wants to keep everything out. Interestingly, both Rose and Troy want the fence to protect their lives it is just a matter of perception. The title "Fences" symbolizes the figurative fences that the characters are wrapping around themselves either to keep people from departure or to prevent them from entering.
Fences is a short history written by the African-American author August Wilson in 1985, that follows a tragic flow and explores significant social issues like racism, family conflicts, mental illness and gender inequality that took place in the post- World War II era, and still affecting us today. To support his ideas, the author takes us into the life of its characters in order to examine their societal and self-imposed limitations; also, the effective use of symbols, setting and themes create a broad perspective of this societal issues analyzing its origin, developing and culmination, in order to let the readers make their own conclusions.