Theme Of Fences By Pat Mora

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

In “Puerto Rican Obituary” by Pedro Pietri, the author takes his readers on a journey of the oppressive life of a Puerto Rican immigrant. He describes a vicious cycle of stagnancy in which immigrants work endlessly without reward. Hopeful every day that the American dream they once imagined would come to fruition, but instead they are continually faced with trials and turmoil on every hand. Instead of uniting as a body to work towards greatness, the immigrants grow envious of each other, focusing on what they lack instead of the blessings that they currently attain. Contrary to the ideals of early immigrants, Pietri portrays Puerto Rico to be the homeland. The ideals of early immigrants have drastically changed throughout the development of America. Petri paints a completely different picture of America throughout his poem. Early immigrants describe an America that is welcoming, with endless opportunities, and a safe haven. Despite earlier depictions of the immigrant experience, these ideals are challenged because they weren’t integrated into society, were inadequately rewarded for hard work, and were disadvantaged due to their socioeconomic status.

August Wilson’s play, “Fences”, is a play about a father who is trying to make do to support his family as well as come to terms with his boisterous upbringing and the collapse of his Major League Baseball career. The Father, Troy Maxson, resents his son’s painless childhood and chances to pursue a college level football career. In multiple excerpts from the play, Troy brutally lectures his son Cory about life and adulthood. He uses short and incomplete sentences, rhetorical questions, repetition, connections from his past, and current examples to support his claim: life is not about being liked, but being treated with righteousness.

In the film Fences by August Wilson, the audience is presented with a country that is fast evolving, with oppression, prejudice, and poverty remaining a common factor. Most scholars argue that sexism is the dominant theme in Wilson’s plays due to the portrayal of female characters occupying the stereotypical, male-fantasized roles of the domestic, powerless, or submissive mother figure rather than an empowered, complex, or realistic woman. However, a closer review of the character of Rose in Fences shows that Wilson has not embraced these stereotypes. In fact, he has aimed at subverting them by allowing domestic behavior,

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 next six lines (or next sentence) deepens the class divide between the speaker and the ‘turistas.’ First, the speaker sees the women rub oil onto themselves, that is “sweeter than honey,” and the children being playful, sipping on drinks with “long straws, coconut white, mango yellow.” The scented oil and colorful drinks (‘material possessions’ in Marxist terms) demonstrate the privilege that the tourists have in comparison to what the speaker and her family have (or, more likely, do not have), for the latter would likely have regular plastic straws to basic drinks. Also, it is worth noting that the speaker does not even have a clear view of the tourists enjoying their vacation--she has to “peek” through the cactus fence, which is essentially a border between the two classes.

Pat Mora’s “Fences” is a delicate poem that deals with the timely issues of class divide and privilege. She begins her poem on a positive note, saying “Mouths full of laughter,” which creates this safe and harmless tone. The next line, she uses the word “turistas,” which is interesting; Mora uses a Spanish word (tourist in English) to indicate possibly the ethnicity of the speaker. It is not until the last few lines of the poem, however, when the reader can also detect the class and likely status of the speaker, when the speaker’s mother says, “It’s their beach,” after seeing the speaker’s younger sister running across the sand where the affluent tourists are. At only 19 lines, “Fences” is a relatively short poem, but Mora’s use of

August Wilson’s Fences depicts life in the 1950s for a typical African American family. The play touches upon racism, shifting family dynamics, and the politics of war. While racism plays an important and vital role in the play, instead of lamenting the issue, Wilson uses the characters as a weapon against the rampant racism of the time. In the same fashion, the relationship between Troy, Rose, and Cory demonstrates the shifting cultural and family dynamics of the decade. Likewise, Wilson’s depiction of Gabriel as a wounded veteran who is not fully supported by the government that sent him off to war offers an enlightening commentary on the politics of the era. Wilson uses the

Pat Mora is an award-winning writer that bases most her poems on tough cultural challenges and life as a Mexican American. She was born in a Spanish speaking home in El Paso, Texas. Mora is proud to be a Hispanic writer and demonstrates how being culturally different in America is not easy. She explains this through her experiences and the experience other’s. In her poems “Elena”, “Sonrisas”, and “Fences”, Mora gives you a glimpse of what life as a Mexican American is; their hardships, trials, strength that make them who they are.

The Barrio is where low income Mexican families live and develop social relations with others around them. It is a safe haven for many Mexican families even though it is very run down and lacks certain necessities. The streets of the barrio are poorly paved and it even has a makeshift barbershop in someone’s living room. This, however, does not deter families from becoming close with each other. While in the barrio, families forget about their hardships and gather together to celebrate what they do have. Their gatherings usually take place on their front porches or in their brightly colored gardens.

The set and setting of a story plays a huge role in the story’s plot. The setting “establishes mood, situation, and character” (Mays 164). It tells you a lot about a character by revealing the character’s personality throughout the story. Setting also creates a strong emotion throughout the story, that the audience can understand. In the film and play “Fences” by August Wilson we can see the impact of setting in both versions of the story. The setting and characterization of the play and the movie changes in certain scenes, allowing the audience to make a comparison of the two.

There eyes make her feel different like an outcast not wanted by anybody. The way they find hers and judge her so quickly, so harshly. Mora again supports that she is viewed as an outsider, a ‘legal alien’ by following that up with lines fourteenth and fifteenth. “an american to mexicans/ A mexican to americans.” These two lines have a strong meaning, and also supports the way she feels, nobody wanted her. She did not belong to either because they judged her based on the other half of her race. the other half of who she is. When in all reality race should not matter, should not affect one's judgement. Somebodys race makes them no better nor no worse than the next person. Moras next two lines sixteen and seventeen, have a strong meaning and the use of a metaphor. “a handy token/ sliding back and forth.” She is referring to herself or her character as a ‘hand token’, which I would assume is a metaphor that symbolizes that she slides back and forth between what feels like two completely different worlds just trying to fit in. To be seen for who she truly is. “between the fringes of both worlds.” Mora now very matter of factly states that to her or her character those lives are two different worlds completely. It also supports that she does not mix them together very much. In the next line Mora chooses to show an emotion in a way. I believe Mora chooses to wait so long before putting a real

In Pat Mora's poem, "Legal Alien," the author describes her biracial character as being "viewed by Anglos as perhaps exotic, / perhaps inferior, definitely different, / viewed by Mexicans as alien," a description which highlights the situation encountered by people who strive to be prestigious individuals by floating between cultures and who consequently fail to be a part of any particular group (Mora 9-11). Often the individuals are biologically trapped between two probable lives, and they forge ahead to meet the opportunity of possibly belonging to the higher society while they degrade the small culture which has weaned them from birth. These people find themselves

Pat Mora easily obtains the audience’s attention by stating that the two characters will be playing a game. La Migra, is the Spanish translation from border patrol in English. It is often heard and used in the media to instill fear in immigrants in the U.S. towards deportation and troubling means. “Let’s play La Migra” (Mora 528) is the first stanza presented in the poem. Having this as the first line, it makes readers wonder. What game is it? How is it played? What does La Migra mean? (to non-Spanish speakers). It grabs and keeps your attention right form the get go because it gets you thinking about what game is going to be played and wanting to find out more of the game itself along with the rules and players. While continuing to read, more is introduced and us readers find out what kind of game it is. Then it bares the question, why would this be considered a game? Immigrants today are living in constant fear of being deported and taken back to their homeland where one can assume escaped life there in hopes of a better life in the states. While this is a real-life situation that people deal with daily, the author turns it into a game to interest the readers more and give insight into what is going on with border patrol.

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.