Themes In Fences

Troy's lack of commitment to finishing the fence that Rose wants put up represents his lack of commitment in his marriage. He doesn't understand that Rose wants to keep the family close because he never truly had a close family. He becomes a womanless man. “From right now… this child got a mother. But you a womanless man” (79). Troy pushes Lyons away by refusing to hear him play his "Chinese music" (48). He also damages his relationship with his other son, Cory, by preventing him from playing football and rejecting his only chance to get recruited by a college football team. The “fence” also depicts that Troy is disowning Cory when they get into an argument and Troy kicks him out on to the streets. Troy states that Cory’s things will be on “the other side of that fence” (89). As a result, Troy ends up driving everybody away just like his father. The “fence” acts like a physical divider between the Maxson’s household and the outside world because Troy doesn’t bring anything others would normally have into his house and Rose does not want any outsider intruding her family.

August Wilson’s Fences is a play about Troy Maxson, and how his values influence his family’s. The play takes place in 1950’s Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Troy Maxson is a black, middle aged man working for a garbage company. Each member of the Maxson family has a special relationship with Troy, that affects their behavior throughout the play. In life you learn the most from your parents. They teach you how to walk, speak, and respect one another. Your parents also give you a set of values for life. As you grow up as your own individual, your values will change from your parents. There will be things that are much more important to you, and not as important to them. In the play Fences Troy Maxson has a very strong set of values that he believes are true in how you should live life. Troy imposes these values on everyone in his family to the best of his ability. Each character in Fences is at a different stage in their life, so Troy can’t push his values onto characters that already have their own beliefs. The character that Troy has the most influence on in the play is Cory. Troy is in Cory’s life throughout his childhood, and as his father Cory must respect Troy. Troy is very firm with Cory, because he wants Cory to be successful. Cory has a dream of becoming a football player, and this does not follow Troy’s values. Troy influences Cory so much that Cory will always be like Troy whether he realizes it or not. “Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn’t … and at

For instance, Rose is portrayed as a matriarch figure that has held the family together. According to Wilson, the extremely figure exhibited by Rose came in a large part from his mother (Wilson 6). Secondly, the fact that a child figure is introduced in the play is aimed at ensuring that maternity can become a central theme in the play. Wilson has presented the audience with the character of a strong maternal figure, Rose, who not only gives birth to Cory, but also plays the role of a supporting wife to her husband, Troy. She appears to handle all the financial matters in the house, even though she is not in any formal employment outside the homestead. She is in charge of all the cooking, shopping, and washing. She constantly monitors Troy’s finances and scolds him like a mother. Thus, Wilson presents a woman whose maternal roles have superseded her marital roles. It is this behavior that could creates the drift between the two and pushes Troy to start an affair with Alberta. If Rose was the submissive stereotypical woman as some critics portray her, it would not be expected of her to accept the child that her husband brings

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

     We all lead lives filled with anxiety over certain issues, and with dread of the inevitable day of our death. In this play, Fences which was written by the well known playwright, August Wilson, we have the story of Troy Maxson and his family. Fences is about Troy Maxson, an aggressive man who has on going, imaginary battle with death. His life is based on supporting his family well and making sure they have the comforts that he did not have in his own childhood. Also, influenced by his own abusive childhood, he becomes an abusive father who rules his younger son, Cory?s life based on his own past experiences. When the issue comes up of Cory having a bright future ahead of him if he joins the football team,

Troy tries to subject Rose to his misogynist mentality in his belief that Rose should answer his every demand. A part in the play that exemplifies this is when Troy calls upon Rose, when she doesn’t answer him as soon as he intends her to. He says, “You’re suppose to come when I call you woman!”(Wilson 1.4.21). Troys response to Rose not being there immediately during his time of need verifies his expectation of his wife being of service to him.

Well come on…I’ll make a batch of biscuits,” (26). Rose steadily tries to be the best mother that she can be for the Maxson family and not just take care of herself. She represents the primary care giver of the Maxson household by cooking for everybody and bringing the whole family in together to eat. “Okay, Troy…you’re right. I’ll take care of your baby for you…cause…like you say…she’s innocent…and you can’t visit the sins of the father upon the child. A motherless child has got a hard time,” (79). By Rose saying and doing this, it just proves how loving and tender hearted she is. Even though Rose is not the child’s mother, she still wants what is best for the baby. “Stop that yelling. You gonna wake up Raynell. I just got her to sleep,” (80). This shows that Rose has fully accepted Raynell as her daughter. Rose does not see Raynell as just Troy’s daughter but also hers too. Rose says, talking about Lyons, “Let the boy have ten dollars, Troy,” (19). This shows how loving and caring Rose acts towards Troy’s son. Rose and Troy clearly do not have enough money to be giving it out, but she encourages Troy to give some to Lyons because she cares about everyone. Rose is a very good hearted person who uses all of her characterisitcs to keep everyone in the family together and keep them in check.

Although Troy does not raise his sons well, it is not completely all his fault. Troys conflicts stem from his relationship with his father when he was a kid, even though he tried to get away from his father by leaving home at a young age. Troy looks down on the way his father acted, but Troy still follows in his footsteps when it comes to raising his sons, making Troy a hypocrite. When Troy states, "Sometimes I wish I hadn't known my daddy. He ain't cared nothing about no kids."(50). When Troy states this, he completely self-contradicts the way he raised Corey and Lyons. Just like Troy and his mother left his father because of his actions, Corey and Rose end up leaving Troy.

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

the beginning, Troy is a tough character defined by his foul mouth and healthy disposition

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 Fences, when Rose learns of her husband Troy’s affair with Alberta, she reacts with outrage for a multitude of reasons. First, she explains how Troy has been selfish, specifically by saying. “What about my life? What about me. Don’t you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted to make me laugh so i could feel good? You not the only who’s got wants and needs.” This series of rhetorical questions show how Rose has been a selfless, responsible wife, in stark contrast to Troy’s irresponsible, unfaithful life. She makes a number of good points that Troy is unable to respond to as they are not disprovable statements and are instead rhetorical questions. Although Rose and Troy have had relationship issues in the path, this interaction is the breaking point for them. The series of interactions leading up to this point to one of Rose’s main qualities - probably the only reason that Rose and Troy’s marriage has lasted this long. This quality is her self-deception. After her series of rhetorical questions she uses the metaphor of a flower taking seed and waiting to bloom. Rose says “I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn’t take me no eighteen years to find out that the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom” This metaphor perfectly captures Rose’s issue with their marriage - Soon after Rose and Troy were married it immediately became apparent that they were not compatible, but Rose still deceived herself into thinking that as time passed, this problem would be resolved and Troy and Rose would grow closer. Partway through the marriage she realizes that she

Family serves as Roses success in the play. She reaches her success by caring for children, and a child that is not hers. In the play it states, “Okay, Troy…you’re right. I’ll take care of your baby for you…cause …like you say…she’s innocent” (Wilson 1074). In this passage from the play it states that Rose will care for Troy’s baby even though she

William Shakespeare once said in The Merchant of Venice, “The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.” Yet many children are not able to overcome their parents’ past tramas. For example, in August Wilson’s play Fences, Troy puts too much pressure on his son Cory, which later haunts Cory and stirs him to move out. In the autobiographical screenplay, Antwone Fisher, the title character is left alone in this cruel world to figure out what did he do wrong for his family to leave him. Antwone Fisher and Cory both carry loose baggage with them for the rest of their lives due to their traumatic pasts, but both are able to overcome their challenges with forgiveness.