August Wilsons “Fences” takes us on a journey that transforms the 20th century impression of a Negro Family with Insatiability, Tenderness, and Sacrifice. The famous play is an autobiography of an American Negro man who loses his dreams for the people he loves. Fences demonstrates us what sacrifice looks like and how egocentricity still exist today. Fences takes place with a family in Pittsburgh from 1957 to 1965. The characters are Troy, Bono, Rose, Lyons, Gabriel, Cory, and Raynell. Fs important because it teaches us Love, respect, responsibility, dignity, and also about discrimination and how it still endured the black population after slavery had been abolished nearly a century before the biggest approach from Fences for any director is an all Negro cast. This show requires a mature cast who can take on the theme of Oppression.
Fences is a grave, dark, depressed production that goes through the life of Troy Maxon a Negro living in Pittsburgh with his wife and son Cory while at times his friend Bono accompanying him. There are three important themes of this play and audience should leave the theater feeling Insatiability, Tenderness, and Sacrifice. As a production Fences takes you on a roller coaster, fences will grab your gut and keep you on your toes. Troy Maxon is living a life of guilt because of his non existent dream of playing baseball. Troy has sacrificed for his “Flesh and blood”. This is deeper than not playing baseball. His pride and dignity is covered
To begin, in the play Fences the author reveals the impact that race has towards Troy by reminiscing on Troy’s past as a baseball player and his experience with racial discrimination. Towards the beginning of the play, Troy starts to talk about how his son Cory wants to play football in high school and pursuit it
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.
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,
The play, “Fences” by August Wilson describes the life of an African-American family that is por. Troy Maxson, the father of the family, was a baseball player in the
In Fences, August Wilson introduces an African American family whose life is based around a fence. In the dirt yard of the Maxson’s house, many relationships come to blossom and wither here. The main character, Troy Maxson, prevents anyone from intruding into his life by surrounding himself around a literal and metaphorical fence that affects his relationships with his wife, son, and mortality.
August Wilson’s play Fences gives a glimpse back in time into the life of Troy Maxson during the 1950s. Troy Maxson is an African-American living in Pittsburgh working as a garbage collector. However, he is bitter and feels as if he has been cheated out of a good life because of his past, race, and age. This behavior drives a wedge between him and the people who care about him. Wilson uses the theatre life themes of generation and love to tell how Troy Maxson displays self-destructive characteristics.
Fences can be viewed as a family play, it can also be viewed as a work specifically of the black man's place, or plight, in a predominantly white world. Either way, it has a very valuable message. It is a true art to be able to touch on so many aspects of life in a work, aspects that may be viewed differently by different people.. Wilson's work, and the character of Troy Maxson, makes me question many things, among them myself, as well as his intended message. This is why I am so in awe of Fences, and of Wilson's talent. This is why I am writing my paper on Fences.
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
Fences by August Wilson is a play that covers the life of Troy Maxson from the 1950s through the mid 1960s. The main character Troy is an aging man who formerly played in the negro leagues and is now working as a garbage man. Troy struggles with racism, taking care of his family and dealing with the reality that times have changed. Maxson is a strong character with very prominent traits displayed throughout the play. He can be described as hardworking, responsible, and troubled. Those traits attest to who he his, how he lives and play a role into his relationships with family and friends.
In the play “Fences” by August Wilson the play’s attitude toward women is biased, and if the play was written by a female I think it would have a stronger feminine influence. Issues such as racism and discrimination against blacks may be raised in the play that the author did not bring up, and the women in the story somewhat do generally typify women in the 1950s. To support my interpretation, the women in the play were homebodies, just worrying about the household because they felt like that 's what they were supposed to do and that 's all that was expected of them and etc.
“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
Troy refuses to let him have his chance, stating, “The white man ain’t gonna let you
In this unit we read a play written as a book, called “Fences”. Fences is about racism written in the 1986. The play is based around the main characters Troy and Rose, and their son Cory. Troy has stated that he has felt the need to provide a life for Cory but doesn't need love him. Troy is wanting Cory to stop playing football and get a real job at the A&P so he can provide for himself. Rose has been trapped in between all of this. All in all, the play Fences written by August Wilson uses the narrative element of characterization of Troy and Rose, the metaphor of sports, and conflict that Troy creates to show tension.
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.
In “Fences,” August Wilson, explores the life of segregation for African Americans and the impacts it could have on family and friends. Additionally, how betrayal and deception affects relationships. By portraying the life of Troy Maxon, an average African American Citizen, Wilson is able to provide the detrimental effects that segregation and deception had on Troy’s life, ultimately affecting the ones he loved most including himself. Gabriel, Troy’s brother, was one of the characters affected who throughout had his own symbolic meaning to the plays overall theme. Gabriel’s role impacted the story in multiple ways. Wilson illustrates Gabriel’s symbolic meaning through African American veterans not getting proper treatment, greed among family, and salvation as a “messenger of God.”