There are many obstacles that many people face in their lives. It may seem very hard to get around most of one’s obstacles. Someone may seem caged or fenced away from seeking greatness. Some may enjoy the luxury of being caged or fenced in due to having comfort of those near them. In August Wilsons play, Fences, the title is very significant due to the fact that there are many fences within this play. The fence in Fences is bigger than it actually seems to be. Throughout the play, there are different ways the fence is represented. The fence is meant to keep what is on the outside out and what is on the inside in. Troy Maxon deals with the struggle of determining which fences should stay in or out of his life. He deals with many fences, yet he fails to perceive the most important fence that is shown to him daily. His biggest fence is meant to keep him and his family together, instead he only pushes them away. Troy is not able to understand the damage he is doing by having many negative fences. Troy has been fenced in all of his life, causing him to become a bully, he has been fenced away from society due to racial inequality, and he also has been fenced away from his career in major league baseball. …show more content…
His father was not the wealthiest man, and was not the nicest man either when it came to raising Troy. Troy deals with being fenced into having a rough childhood life with his abusive father. At the age 14 Troy was forced to grow up and go out on his own because he feels if he can do a better job than his abusive father. Being
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.
As with most works of literature, the title Fences is more than just a title. It could be initially noted that there is only one physical fence being built by the characters onstage, but what are more important are the ideas that are being kept inside and outside of the fences that are being built by Troy and some of the other characters in Fences. The fence building becomes quite figurative, as Troy tries to fence in his own desires and infidelities. Through this act of trying to contain his desires and hypocrisies one might say, Troy finds himself fenced in, caught between his pragmatic and illusory ideals. On the one side of the fence, Troy creates illusions and embellishments on the truth, talking about how he wrestled with death, his encounters with the devil, later confronting the d...
August Wilson’s play, Fences, follows the formal conventions of its genre, which helps convey the story to the audience because he uses stage directions, theme, symbolism, and figurative language. Theme and symbolism are an important factor in the play. These two things are the main focus of the play because it gives us a message that the author wants to give us to secretly while we read. A theme that was given in Fences is that oppression does not choose to hurt people of color, but gender as well.
Fences, a low-diction play by August Wilson, expresses the complex relationship between a father and his sons. Troy Maxson, once a baseball star in the Negro League, is now envious of his son Cory, who dreams of having a successful football career. Troy also worries that Cory will be treated with the same disrespect that he once was during his baseball career. Lyons, Troy's eldest son, is completely misunderstood by Troy, mostly because of his refusal to get a “real” job and his drive to become a musician. Wilson references stories from Troy's past to convey the reason behind Troy's frustration and actions toward his children.
Should a neglected, discriminated, and misplaced black man living in the mid 1900s possessing a spectacular, yet unfulfilled talent for baseball be satisfied or miserable? The play Fences, written by August Wilson, answers this question by depicting the challenging journey of the main character, Troy Maxon. Troy, an exceptional baseball player during his youth, cannot break the color barrier and is kept from playing in the big leagues. That being his major life setback, Troy has a pessimistic view of the world. His attitude is unpleasant, but not without justification.
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.
Troy is the son of an abusive father. His father was hardly around to raise him. When he was around, he made him do chores and if he didn’t do them he would beat him. One time, after Troy tied up the mule, just as his father told him to, he went off to the creek with a girl to “enjoy himself.” The mule got loose, and his father found out. His father came looking for him. When he found them at the creek, he had the leather mule straps; he started to beat Troy. Troy was naturally scared so he ran away. He looked back at his father and realized that his father didn’t care about beating him, he just wanted the girl. Troy came back; he ripped the straps out of his father’s hand. He then started to beat his father with them. His father, not afraid of Troy, beat up Troy. Troy was left there, his eyes were swelled shut. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t go back to his father’s house, so he went to another town 200 miles away. This is when Troy became a man at the age of 14.
“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
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.
Everything in August Wilson’s play Fences, can be related to or is a fence of some sort. The main character, Troy Maxson, is a retired negro league baseball star whose whole life revolves around fences. Fences is completely driven by this idea of metaphorical and physical fences. Pride and alcohol are the fences that really cloud Troy’s views. His son, Cory, has fences in this play as well. All these fences intertwine to create a story that addresses many of society's problems.
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 uses the symbol of a 'fence' in his play, Fences, in numerous occasions. Three of the most important occasions fences are symbolized are by protection, Rose Maxson and Troy Maxson's relationship, and Troy against Mr. Death. Throughout the play, characters create 'fences' symbolically and physically to be protected or to protect. Examples such as Rose protecting herself from Troy and Troy protecting himself form Death. This play focuses on the symbol of a fence which helps readers receive a better understanding of these events. The characters' lives mentioned change around the fence building project which serves as both a literal and a figurative symbol, representing the relationships that bond and break in the backyard.
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.
...in character of “Fences,” fights to be a father with nothing to go on but the harsh example set by his own father, which resembles a symbolic fence separating the relationship between father and son. There is also Troy's son, Cory, a boy becoming a man, coming of age under Troy's sovereignty. The play shows that no matter how old you are, you're constantly measuring yourself against the example set by your parents. Even if the reader’s family is nothing like the Maxsons, one may possibly connect with this basic human struggle.
Fences is a play that was written by August Wilson, it follows the life of Tony Maxson, a garbage man, who throughout the play is building a fence around his home. The title, Fences, has more significance than one may have thought at first glance. The title is very symbolic in the perspective of almost every character in the play. Within Act 2, Scene 1 of the play, when discussing the reason as to why Rose wanted the fence up, with Cory and Troy, Bono 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.”. In the perspective of Rose, she wants to keep people in and with Troy it is the complete opposite.