A Comparison Of Fences By August Wilson

August Wilson did not name his play, Fences, simply due to the melodramatic actions that take place in the Maxson household, but rather the relationships that bond and break because of the “fence”. The “fence” serves as a structural device because the character's lives are constantly changing during the construction of the fence. The dramatic actions in the play strongly depend on the building of the fence in the Maxson’s backyard. Fences represents the metaphorical walls or fences that the main characters are creating around themselves in order to keep people in or vice versa. The title may seem straightforward, but in actuality it is a powerful symbol which can either have positive or

The members of the family that makes the most effort to keep the family level is Troy?s wife, Rose. The narrator tells us that Rose is a gentle woman. She cares a great deal for her family and her husband, despite the challenge of making her home a positive environment under the strains of a man with such impossible qualities. The author explains her reasons for enduring Troy by saying that ? her devotion to him stems from her recognition of the possibilities of her life without him: a succession of abusive men and their babies, a life of partying and running the streets, the Church, or aloneness with its attendant pain and frustration? (526; I, 1). In light of the fact that Troy is a good man and provides for their family in a way of his duty, Rose loves and supports him and ?either ignores or forgives his faults, only some of which she recognizes? (526; I, 1). Despite his love and respect for his wife, Troy acts extremely disrespectfully towards Rose. Due to the lack of love and respect that Troy was shown as a boy, he does not know feelings to his family. He talks down to his wife as if she were a child, while at the same time he declares his love for her to his friend, Bono. Troy?s fault, however, in declaring his love for his wife and family. He says, ?I love Rose? (555; II, 1), but when the time comes for him to show his love, he only disrespects her. When Rose asks Troy what he and Bono are talking about one

Troy's then made his life revolve around work and his family; he put his dreams of becoming a major league baseball player aside. He went into working and became a garbage man; he realized that he needed a steady income to provide for his family and to purchase the house that they live in. Even in the work place Troy wants to excel and make a stand for himself, talking to the commissioner about being a driver of one of the garbage trucks. Troy argued for blacks to drive the garbage trucks, but he doesn't know how to drive or even have a license. Troy acts out to try and better his black community and to try and break the barrier between whites and blacks. When Troy confronts Rose about his affair with Alberta, Rose becomes very angry with Troy. Rose is a stronger person than Troy, despite what she lets him think. She makes this extremely apparent when Troy tells her about the affair. "All of a sudden it's "we," where was "we" at when you was down there rolling around with some god forsaken woman? "We" should have come to an understanding before you started making a damn fool of yourself. You're a day late and a dollar short when it comes to an understanding with me." Troy realizes that the affair causes much disrespect to his wife and family. One day while visiting his wife Rose, they receive a call at the

Family is not always the easiest thing to deal with as families always seem to get into disagreements. This is shown in the play “Fences” by August Wilson which is full of tension between the main character, Troy, and his various family members. Troy’s many bad decisions and mistakes cause a lot of hate to be directed at him and a lot of arguments ensue throughout the play. August Wilson uses many narrative elements in the play to make it more interesting and show the tension more clearly. Overall, in the play “Fences” August Wilson uses narrative elements such as father-son conflict, contrasting motifs, and characterization to show characters’ problems to create tension between characters.

I think it’s a perfect example of women in the 1950s because after the war, women still found themselves in traditional roles but were slowly breaking out of them. When the men returned from the war, many women wished to keep their jobs but instead became stay at home mothers who were expected to care for the children as well as cook and clean. Many ads and TV shows portrayed the perfect “wife and mother” that women in the 1950s were expected to be. Rose deals with Troy 's nonsense mostly because she feels she has too, and even after Troy cheated on her and had a baby by another woman she took care of the baby. An example of this is when Rose said “I told him if he was not the marrying kind, then move out the way so the marrying kind could find me.” This shows that Troy is unloyal, and Rose was always subject to his wild ways. Especially when Rose insisted on marrying him instead of

In the opening of the play, the main characters are developed to be very stereotypical archetypes. Troy is the money earning, hard-assed, head of the house and Rose is the gentle and caring mother. Through metaphors, Wilson can contradict these initial character developments and reveal the character 's true intentions. In the opening of the play, Troy 's character is “... fifty-three years old, a large man with thick, heavy hands; it is this largeness that he strives to fill out and make an accommodation with” (1.1.1). His appearance implies that Troy has an ego larger than himself and strives to fill up the missing space in every way possible, but is not showing his struggles. In a heated argument with Rose Troy says, “It’s not easy for me to admit that I been standing in the same place for eighteen years” (2.1.70). In other words, Troy is perceived to be a self-sufficient and progressive man, until now. He reveals his vulnerabilities and says that although he puts on a front of accomplishment, he has felt

He is the main protagonist and goes through the most amount of stuff in the book. In Act 1 The thing he seems most dissatisfied about is his baseball career that did not work out due to racial discrimination Troy says “I'm talking about if you could play ball then they ought to have let you play. Don't care what color you were." Troy is talking about his baseball career he was really good but didn't get to play because of his skin color and now he cannot play because of his age due to this dissatisfaction he see’s his son get into sports and he does not want to see his son go through all of the same thing he went through he wants his son to have something he can count on like a real job. This Affects their Father Son relationship because this makes them argue a lot and causes them not to like each other and this causes a lot of family dissatisfaction. Troy talks about his dad and he seems very dissatisfied about him and his father's relationship Troy says “My daddy ain’t had them walking blues! What you talking about? He stayed right there with his family. But he was just as evil as he could be.” (Wilson, 51) Troy and his son are very alike to troy and his son. Troy father was abusive and an evil man. Troy is dissatisfied and feels like he dissatisfied his family. Although Troy's father was evil he stuck around he never left his family and took care of them. Troy feels like he does the same as his father and takes care of his family but he still feels like he has not satisfied his family or himself. There are a lot of symbols that connect to the theme of

Rose, Troy’s wife, is characterized by her responsible and guiltless actions toward her family. She sings to Jesus to be her “fence all around” and “protect” her. ( 21) Bono tells Troy, “Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you.” (61) This quote describes how caring and devoted of a character Rose is, because she wants to keep her family together by building a “fence.” Her supportive character is shown when she encourages her son to play football even when Troy refuses to let him play. (39) She claimed she had “dreams and hopes” but took all her “feelings” and gave them to Troy. (70-71) This declares that Rose, unlike Troy, cut off her ambitions and need for the sake of her family. She reminds Cory that his father tried to make everyone’s

For years, people have stressed the idea of an, “American Dream” saying that all people no matter social class or ethnicity will have an equal chance to be successful as every other American. People hope that through the American Dream they can live a life full of happiness and material comfort. The idea of this dream has also lead to millions of people from across the world to migrate to our country (Kimberly). Although this sounds great and promising, the idea that everyone in this country has an equal opportunity has come into question throughout time and people feel that others have a leg up in this world. A playwright that expresses the topic and idea of the,” American Dream” and the outlook that some may have on it is ,”Fences” Written by August Wilson. In his past works, Wilson has also expressed the views that people, mainly African Americans, have towards the changing world. By writing “Fences” Wilson shows that he feels that the,” American Dream” can be obtainable but because of situations and culture in the past, people in deprived areas may not adapt to the idea that they can create a successful life for themselves and begin to settle, resulting in them living in anger and regret which then then has a trickling effect throughout their families causing a negative and unhealthy environment for everyone around.

As people grow up, they tend to hold onto the experiences and memories which then shape them into the person they are and their lifestyle. Everyone has their personal identity and those who have similar personalities tend to go through the same childhood growing up. However, as society changes through the years, people's perceptions of lifestyle adapts and grows into something new. In August Wilson’s, “Fences,” a protagonist Troy Maxson was singly raised by an imperfect father and because of this, he takes his exposure to fatherhood and uses it on his two sons Lyons and Cory.

When most people think of the term “hero” they think of comic book characters with superpowers or role models who have estimable traits. For some, the thought of a “tragic hero” could seem remotely contradicting and perplexing. However, the Greek philosopher Aristotle defines a tragic hero as a character who, for the most part, is a benevolent person, but suffers from his or her hamartia and hubris, which ultimately leads to their downfall and recognition of their poor choices, as well as the reversal of their situation. The play Fences written by August Wilson describes the struggles and hardships of an African-American family endeavoring to live the American Dream in the 1950s. Although some may argue that the main character, Troy, is not a tragic hero, evidence in the play fortifies that he is due to his essentially good nature, his hubris and his hamartia of obstinacy, which ultimately lead to the reversal of his fortune and his tragic downfall.

Rose is seen as the person to hold everything together in their household. She definitely knows how to keep Troy in his place. However, that wasn’t enough. Troy decided to cheat on Rose with another women, which leaded to the women becoming pregnant with his child. This changes the outlook on the story drastically. Rose and Troy’s relationship is in the turmoil, and for Troy everything seems to be falling apart. During the confrontation Rose says, “ and it didn’t take me no eighteen years to find out the soul was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never going to bloom. But I held on to you, Troy. I held you tighter” (71). She is telling him how she knew that he wasn’t going to change, and even if he couldn’t she would have still been there for him. If Troy’s father had taught him how to work out his problems, he wouldn’t have lost his and Rose’s

The award winning play Fences is not just a work of fiction from the mind of August Wilson, but rather it is the reflections of a middle-aged man on his adolescent years. The majority of characters, places, and events are mirrored after real-life people, places, and history from Pittsburgh where Wilson grew up. Rather than creating a whole new world and characters for his third play, August Wilson infused his own personal childhood to form a story that could be related to by viewers and readers alike. Whether a Wilson consciously replicated elements of his history or not, the success of Fences, is due to the audience 's ability to relate to the characters and the circumstances of their lives.

For a start, the setting is different in the story than in the play. In the story they developed the scenery with imagery and set the scene for us beforehand. However, in the play they went straight to the house and we didn’t even get to see the town, or the mood of where they lived. In the play it was more about the story and not setting us up for it, not letting us get the background of the story.

Troy most definitely shows signs of not listening to his wife throughout this play. One example to illustrate this is when Rose tells Troy, “How was you gonna play ball when you were over forty? Sometimes I can’t get no sense out of you” (1536). Troy is bitter that he never got the chance to play professional sports. Deep down, he just can’t get over what happened to him. Since Troy is black, he wasn’t allowed to play major league baseball during his era. Troy still lives with what happened to him and will not accept that the times have changed for African Americans in athletics. More and more African Americans are being accepted in to athletics, unlike when Troy was playing baseball. Rose is trying to explain to Troy that he needs