The Faults of Troy Maxson August Wilson brings out the struggle of Troy Maxson in his play, Fences. All those that matter to him end up feeling this struggle, for it remains constantly inside of him. As it overcomes Troy the respect and love that he was previously given dwindles to nothing. Troy’s actions and failure to fix them makes his true character known. Troy Maxson’s flawed nature is shown when he fails his family by giving way to his selfishness and the traits of his father. Troy’s Father’s importance and impact on him become evident as soon as Troy’s childhood is known. Despite the hate Troy felt towards his father, he ended up very similar to him. Troy’s father didn’t love or even care about his children, but he did have a responsibility he owed them. . “Maybe he ain’t treat us the way he should have….but without that responsibility he could have walked off and left us.” (I iv, 51). This was the one thing Troy agreed with his father about. However, this trait of responsibility would be used in somewhat of a double standard, with over emphasizing it on Cory but not seeming to consider it on Rose. Troy changes situations to fit his …show more content…
Losing the respect and company of people was one of the few things that caused him to feel some form of remorse for what he did to Rose. However, Troy did nothing to fix the problems he created, except to drink and pretend he was still respected. It becomes especially clear that nobody respects Troy when Cory blatantly says “I ain’t got to say excuse me to you. You don’t count around here no more” (II iv, 85). Although nobody else says it as obviously as Cory, most characters realize Troy’s failure. Even though he may have provided for his family in the physical sense, Troy neglected them a great deal emotionally. This once again proves that Troy is unsuitable to be a proper father for Cory and a respectable husband for
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 things inside or outside Troy used the fence he was building to keep out death, his family, and his disappointments in life while Rose used the fence to keep those she cared about inside and help them bond.
Fences is a play that deals with boundaries that hold people back and the trials and tribulations of those who try or wish to cross them. The characters are African-Americans in a time before the civil rights movement, living in an industrial city. The main character, Troy Manxson, is a talented baseball player who never had the chance to let his talent shine, with restrictions on race and his time in jail as the main obstacles that held him back. He is now hard working and loves his family. However, he tends to exaggerate and has his faults, most prevalent a wandering eye when it comes to women. His wife, Rose, is younger than him and loyal, but she may not have known about all of his faults when she married him. At the beginning of the play, Troy has a son from a previous marriage, Lyons, and a son with Rose, Cory. Also appearing are Bono, Troy’s drinking buddy, and Gabriel, his brother.
Throughout the play, pieces of Troy’s background are exposed to the reader. It quickly becomes clear that he was a talented baseball player who could have played professionally if not for the color of his skin. Instead of going on to a successful baseball career, Troy was forced to move on with his life and settle down as a garbage man. Although this is not what he truly wants in his life, it provides stability for him and his family. Similarly to his father, Troy’s son, Cory, is a talented football player who is being scouted for college. However, instead of encouraging him, Troy constantly scolds him, telling him he has to find a ‘real job;’ Troy even tells the scout to leave. This is ultimately because of his jealousy towards Cory’s success in sports, and the fact that Cory possesses the life Troy dreamed of. Many feuds and disagreements are born between the father and son because of their different views.
"Sometimes I wish I hadn't known my daddy. He ain't cared nothing about no kids.” (50). Troy and Cory have a misunderstanding on what to do for Cory’s next step in his life for college. Troy wants Cory to stop playing football so he can just have the job and be at school. Troy does not want Cory to have any other distraction from the two. Cory is being recruited by a college, everyone in the house is happy for him except his father. The relationship between Troy and Cory is bitter and stressed mostly because Troy is trying to treat Cory the same way he was treated by white people in sports and how he was treated by his father. Troy feels that Cory is disobeying his rules or what he tells him not to do which is to stop playing football. Which counted as strike one. Strikes were warning of disobeying rules told by Troy. If someone gets three strikes from Troy, they will be removed from the house. Life for Troy as a kid was a struggle, living on a farm with ten siblings and a father who barely cares for his kids. His father just wanted his kids to learn how to walk so they can get the working and help around the farmhouse. Before Troy even thinks about leaving his home as a fourteen-year-old, his mother already left because she did not feel comfortable around Troy’s father “evilness”. So, once she left that influence Troy to think about leaving his home which he did because his father kicked him out the
His father could have treated his children better, Troy, “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t known my daddy. He ain’t cared nothing about no kids. A kid to him wasn’t nothing. All he wanted was for you to learn how to walk so he could start you to working. When it come time for eating. . . he ate first.” (Wilson Pg. 1213). Troy grew up with an abusive father, it made him have no feelings towards his own kids and it plays a huge role in why he acts the way he does. Joe Canewell’s daughter and Troy were about the same age when they were enjoying themselves. His father caught him a whupped him like a slave. That’s when Troy tries to fight his father because his father tries to mess with the young girl. He woke up battered and broken from being unconscious and that when left
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 anyone a chance to prove themselves because he was selfish.
In the play Fences by August Wilson, Troy is shown as a man who has hurt the people who are closest to him without even realizing it. He has acted in an insensitive and uncaring manner towards his wife, Rose, his brother, Gabriel and his son, Cory. At the beginning of the story, Troy feels he has done right by them. He feels this throughout the story. He doesn’t realize how much he has hurt them.
“Fences” is a play written by August Wilson about a family living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1957. Troy and Rose have been married for 18 years and have two grown children; Lyons and Corey. Troy is an uptight, prideful man who always claims that he does not fear death, the rest of his family is more laxed and more content with their lives than Troy is. As the play progresses the audience learns more about Troy’s checkered past with sharecropping, his lack of education and the time he spent in prison. The audience also learns more about Troy’s love for baseball and the dreams he lost due to racism and segregation. In the middle of the play the author outwardly confirms what the audience has been suspecting; Troy isn’t exactly satisfied with his life. He feels that he does not get to enjoy his life and that his family is nothing more than a responsibility. Getting caught up in this feelings, Troy cheats on Rose with a woman named Alberta and fathers a child with the mistress. By the end of the play Troy loses both of the women and in 1965, finally gets the meeting with death that he had been calling for throughout the play. Over the
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 refuses to allow him. The root of this decision lies in his own experience of not being allowed to join the baseball team due to the racial prejudices of his time. He does not realize that times have changed and because of his own past, he ruins his son?s life too. His wife, Rose, also plays a big part in the way the story develops. Troy has an affair with another woman called Alberta. When Rose finds out about the affair, she is devastated. In this situation we find out what her own hopes and dreams were. All she wanted was a happy home and family life because of her unstable past. The theme of this story is how a black family, in the late fifties to early sixties, faces the problems that many families are faced with, but in their own...
Troy Maxson is portrayed as a big man with a very big personality and a lot of dignity. He is a bitter guy who believes that he owes his family absolutely everything, from his money down to even his own soul. He is the type of man who wants more than what he can get and that is what drives him but it is also that very “want” that leads him into a very tragic life. Writing on the idea of Troy being a tragic hero, Martin says “Troy’s strengths are found in his willingness to fulfill his duty at all times. He also speaks directly to his dignity regarding his position of work and his career in baseball) Martin, 2) “Fences” Troy has many
In the play Fences, August Wilson uses symbolism throughout the story to emphasis the physical and emotional barrier between the protagonist, Troy Maxon, and everyone around him. Troy loses his career as a professional baseball player because of his race. This causes him to be a bitter man and he eventually loses his friends and family because of it. Wilson uses both literal and figurative symbolism to express the themes in this play.
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, but he is also hitting up against himself and ultimately making his life more complicated. The discrimination that Troy faced while playing baseball and the torment he endures as a child shape him into one of the most dynamic characters in literary history. The central conflict is the relationship between Troy and Cory. The two of them have conflicting views about Cory’s future and, as the play goes on, this rocky relationship crumbles because Troy will not let Cory play collegiate football. The relationship becomes even more destructive when Troy admits to his relationship with Alberta and he admits Gabriel to a mental institution by accident. The complication begins in Troy’s youth, when his father beat him unconscious. At that moment, Troy leaves home and begins a troubled life on his own, and gaining a self-destructive outlook on life. “Fences” has many instances that can be considered the climax, but the one point in the story where the highest point of tension occurs, insight is gained and...
August Wilson’s play Fences brings an introspective view of the world and of Troy Maxson’s family and friends. The title Fences displays many revelations on what the meaning and significance of the impending building of the fence in the Maxson yard represents. Wilson shows how the family and friends of Troy survive in a day to day scenario through good times and bad. Wilson utilizes his main characters as the interpreters of Fences, both literally and figuratively. Racism, confinement, and protection show what Wilson was conveying when he chose the title Fences.
Throughout the play Fences, by August Wilson, we are introduced to several of the Troy Maxson's family members. We soon learn that because of Troy's personality traits, he is unable to sustain a healthy relationship. Troy is a father, a husband, and a brother, and unfortunately, he makes it impossible for any of those numerous relationships to thrive.
August Wilson created many themes throughout his famous play, Fences, but the most prominent one is the relationship between fathers and sons. The three father-son relationships introduced in this play seem to be complicated or difficult to understand. However, it is clear that the relationships built between Troy Maxson and his son Cory, Troy and his other son Lyons, and Troy and his own father are not love-driven. The parallelism of actions, events, and tension amongst each of the father-son relationships in the play illustrate how the sons try to break free from the constraints the father has set, yet in the end, these attempts seem to be pointless as the father leaves an everlasting effect on the sons, ultimately creating a cycle of actions