Fences By August Wilson: Play Analysis

Upon finishing the week, on Friday Troy and his friend Bono talk about what they witnessed during the week. While arriving home, Bono brings up the subject of how he knew that Troy was not going to get fired from work. Upon entering Troy comes face to face with his son, Lyon, who is there to give Troy back the money he borrowed from him. After, seeing this Bono and Lyons greet each other and Bono talks about the promotion Troy got at his job.  He states, “ your daddy got a promotion on the rubbish. He gonna be the first colored driver. Ain't got to do nothing but sit up there and read the paper like them white fellows "( Wilson, 1168). In this quote it is clear that a black man getting a promotion is not an everyday thing. This can be observed in the way Bono talks about the incident. The idea of race is seen impacting Troy’s opportunity and type of work. This is seen through the fact that there are societal roles which have been placed upon each race and the type of job he or she is supposed to pursuit. In this case, the author characterizes that the job for whites is to be the drivers, who drive a truck and “read papers”. In comparison, the job for blacks like Troy are labor intensive work, which do not pay a significant amount needed for survival. The author through this quote shows how the topic of race effects Troy day to day life which includes his job. Troy’s race has a major impact on his job, due to the fact that based on his color Troy was not allowed the job of being a driver for a long time. This leads to a lack of funding from Troy to support his family, which in turn leads to conflicts between Troy and other members of the family. This impact race has on Troy’s job also, affected the way Troy feels about himself.  This is due to the fact that when not being able to provide his family's needs, he begins to question his masculinity. In

In the play Fences, by August Wilson, the main character, Troy Maxson is involved in numerous relationships with family members throughout the entire eight years that the story takes place. Troy is a father, husband, and brother to other characters in the play. Unfortunately for Troy, a strong-minded and aggressive man, he constantly complicates the relationships with his family members. Troy's hurtful actions and words make it nearly impossible for him to sustain healthy relationships with not only his two sons, but also his wife and brother.

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 first issue that is focused on throughout the play would be the racial inequality in America in the 1950’s. Although there were many Americans who were fighting to end segregation and discrimination, nothing was legally done about it until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Troy Maxson being an African American man in his early fifties, grew up with the white man suppressing him. Troy was a Negro League star but when black men were finally allowed to play in the Major Leagues of baseball in 1947, Troy was too old to play. This left him very bitter towards life and the way he went on to raise his sons, which also ties into the generational clashes that will be discussed later on.

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

Troy is constantly exposed to racism and attempts to overcome it in everyday life. There are many instances throughout the book of black people, often working very hard to try and get an opportunity to make something of their lives. This opportunity that is searched for is constantly dismissed because of the underlining theme of racism. Troy isn’t one to stand up for himself, but does when he speaks to his boss about inequality in the work area “I went to Mr. Rad and asked him ‘why? Why you got white men’s driving and the colored man lifting?’” (Wilson 19) Troy’s frustration in dealing with racism and inequality everyday reflects his frustrations from being denied a career in baseball. Despite Troy’s efforts to work hard, he along with many others is not given a chance to change the lives of their families. Troy says that he works as hard as possible and receives nothing for it

life in the mid to late twentieth century and the strains of society on African Americans. Set in a small neighborhood of a big city, this play holds much conflict between a father, Troy Maxson, and his two sons, Lyons and Cory. By analyzing the sources of this conflict, one can better appreciate and understand the way the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work.

August Wilson made his audience aware of the issues blacks were going through during that time period. For instance, Wilson shows the struggle Troy has with allowing his son Corey to play sports and get recruited. Troy goes on to say “I decided seventeen years ago that boy wasn’t getting involved in no sports. Not after what they did to me in the sports” (Wilson 1.3.111). Troy is referring to how the whites would not let him play in the major league because of his skin color and he believes they will do the same to Corey. Wilson expresses another theme of color discrimination when Troy talks to Bono about how only whites drive the garbage trucks while the coloreds do the picking. Troy states, “…Why? Why you got the white men driving and the colored lifting? … What’s the matter, don’t I count? You think only white fellows got sense enough to drive a truck…” (Wilson 1.1.10). This was a big problem for many companies in the 1950’s the African Americans played minor roles at the time only whites held the special privilege jobs. Many black men like Troy just wanted a change they wanted equal job opportunities like the white men were getting.

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.

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

Plays, “Fences” and “A Raisin in the Sun” share similar plots. They take place in the mid-western United States in the 1950’s and explore the family dynamics of the African-American Family and the paradigmatic shift it experienced between two generations. The older generation, who could remember slavery by first-hand experience or by being born during a time when success for the average African-Americans was systematically stifled by racist and unconstitutional laws that were put in place when slavery was legal, and the young generation that began to show some sense of entitlement, had begun to overcome institutional barriers to succeed and empower

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.

"Fences" the play is about an African-American man who tries to raise his family and overcome the statistics in the 1950s. The main character Troy is a garbage collector who was a great ballplayer for the Negro leagues. Troy is a very arrogant man; he becomes the center of attention of his family, even though he tries to change his life. In act one he expresses his discomfort with Bono his best friend about how unfair his boss Rand is with the colored man. According to act one Troy had asked Mr. Rand Why"? Why you got the white’s men's driving and the colored lifting? “Told him what's the matter, don't I count? You think only white fellows got sense enough to drive a truck. That ain't a paper job! Hell, anybody can drive a

In so many ways Fences is such an ordinary story that its power comes from the ways in which ordinary people hear and view it. There is no doubt but that the metaphor of the fence prevails, working its way across work, family, friendship and the emotional pain of living a life literally dependent on garbage for survival. This is what Wilson wrote about in his Fences of the 1950s. In retrospect, however, it doesn't take a lot to put some of these pieces together yet again to create a difference story of its own kinds of fences, wooden, social, economic. But then or now, this story is still about the ordinary failing of a person who cannot figure out how to get out of the box that surrounds him and who thus finds himself pulling others inside his own fenced in troubles and pains. Being a black man wasn't easy then and it isn't easy today.