Short Story

Arthur Baer once said “A good neighbor is a fellow who smiles at you over the back fence, but doesn’t climb over it.” In the poem ‘Mending Wall’, by Robert Frost, it talks about two neighbors who rebuild a wall between their pastures. One believes the wall is good and neccary but the other thinks the wall is pointless due to the fact neither have livestock or other pets to trespass on one’s land. Fences are good at respecting boundaries though it can cause issues with neighbors, such as lack of communication or miscommunication, boundary disputes, and regulations that are needed to be met and maintained due to the fencing.

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.

The fence Rose asks Troy to build for her is a representation of the walls that arise between characters throughout the plot of the play. One example of this is the wall that comes between Troy and Cory when Troy does not allow Cory to play football. In Act 1 Scene 3, Troy and Cory’s relationship experiences a complication when Troy refuses to let Cory play football:

“Freeze, Police!” Sgt. Salazar commands from behind. Startled, the robber froze. “Hands up!” Hands were up in the air with the rifle still in one hand. “Drop your weapon!” Slowly placing the rifle on the ground, the robber swiftly rotated ready to shoot, when Sgt. Salazar close behind open fired at the chest.

There is also the literal fence in the play, which Rose wants Troy to build around their yard. Troy wonders why Rose would want a fence when they have virtually nothing of value to steal. Bogumil believes that, "A fence to Rose has spiritual significance, solace to comfort her during the times she must intervene in the dysfunctional relationship between her son Cory and husband Troy...(48). The beginning of Act One, Scene Two begins with Rose singing to herself, "Jesus, be a fence around me every day...." (Wilson, 21). While Troy is building fences to keep people out, Rose builds a fence to keep them in, as she, "dearly desires to preserve the family she has never had" (Bogumil, 48). Rose herself says to Troy, "...you know I ain't never wanted no half nothing in my family. My whole family is half.....Can't hardly tell who's who (Wilson, 68).

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

Kent Rasmussen, in his essay, “Places Discussed” claims that Troy Maxson’s fence acts as a reflection of the characters desire throughout the play. Rasmussen supports this statement by first claiming that the reason that Troy procrastinates building the fence is because it represents confinement; he wants to resists its limitations. He supports this by stating from the novel, “some people build fences to keep people out. And other people build fences to keep people in” and the unfenced yard allows Troy to be free like he desires to be (Wilson 61). Then, he states that the fence means the opposite to Rose. He claims that the fence, for Rose, represents a safe world and a way to keep her family close. That building the fence is Rose’s own way

In Fences, Troy Maxon builds a fence around his property that contains metaphorical reasons as well as the literal meaning. During a conversation with Troy and Cory, Bono mentions the fence Troy is building for his wife Rose and says “Some people build fences to keep people out...and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you” (61). Bono explains this to Troy because Cory was unable to comprehend why Rose wanted the fence up in the first place. This opens the reader up to the symbolization of the fence itself. The fence allows Rose to keep Troy with her because she has loved him for so many years and does not want to let him go or leave her for another woman. Later, in Act two, Troy, after speaking to Rose about his new baby who he had with his mistress Alberta,

In baseball, Fences is the slang term for the outfield wall that must be cleared for a home run (Zirin). During troy’s younger years he was a great baseball player but due to the color barrier in the major leagues, he was unable to finish his dreams. Although Troy knows he could go the distance in baseball, he sees the fences in his real life as a confinement. The fences are not only his confinement from his dreams but he is confined to dealing with his guilt. Troy says “I stood on first base for eighteen years and I thought…well, goddamn it…go on for it!” (Wilson 1609). Troy has built up guilt due to his infidelities with another woman. He cheats on his wife because he despises the idea that Rose is the best he can do. The building of the fence is something that Troy is trying to delay because he feels like in a sense having the fence up with take away his dreams and keep him in which is inevitably the reason for his adultery.

Fences is a story written by August Wilson focused on a black family’s dispute. Troy, the father of the family, is the one who is going to fix the broken fences, but he never got it fixed. Just like in the play, Troy has good intentions to do the best to protect and be good to his family, but his act is actually dividing the family. Troy is that broken part of the fences that tears the family apart.

Furthermore, we see that August Wilson did name his play “Fences” because of the dramatic action depends strongly on the building of a fence in the Maxson’s backyard. The character’s lives change around the fence which serves as both a literal and a

Rose asks Troy to build a fence around their house, which takes Troy majority of the play to finally finish. When Troy questions why Rose is insisting on him building a fence Mr. Bono tells him, “some people build fences to keep people in...others to keep people out” (Wilson II.i). Rose sees the fence she asked Troy to build as a way to keep love and family in, but Troy sees it as a way to keep threats and people out, as well as for protection. To Rose, the fence is more than just a project. As Bono says to Troy, “Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you” (Wilson II.i). The fence is a symbol of her love, and her longing for the fence to be built signifies the responsibility she takes on to nurture her family and create a loving environment.

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.

Have you ever built a "fence" to keep things in? How about to actually build a fence to keep things out? August Wilson's play "Fences" uses the name as both a metaphorical and physical reference. There are four of these metaphorical fences that are referred to as well as the physical hardwood fence that Troy is actually building.