Troy Maxson Gender Roles

Thesis / Blueprint Points- Troy Maxson adheres to traditional gender roles, and that impacts Cory when Troy decided to make decisions on his own, Rose when Troy decided to have an affair with Alberta, and lastly Troy himself because he’s inability to know he is at fault or lower himself to sincerely apologize, pushed his family members further away with the relationships unamended. These are some of the instances in which Troy adheres to traditional gender roles for a male.

Body Paragraphs- Troy Maxson adheres to traditional gender roles by being a dominant, decision making father in the household, and that essentially held Cory, his son, back and drove him away. We first see Cory being held back in football. Cory was a pretty good football

Troy is married to Rose for 18 years, and due to his burden of providing for the family, he starts to flirt with Alberta. Eventually, Alberta is impregnated with Troy’s baby. Troy’s affair adheres to gender roles because men are portrayed as going a lot to hang out with girls, the one who is unfaithful, and considers his own pleasure more crucial than his wife and family. As he tells Rose about this affair, Rose is deeply hurt and disheartened. She said, “‘ I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams … and I buried them inside you. … And it didn’t take no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom … But I held onto you” (Wilson 71). In this quote, Rose uses a metaphor to compare herself to a seed. The word “buried” means to “put or hide underground”, and once Rose married Troy, she starts to hide her wants, feelings, needs, and dreams, so she can be a good wife. She planted a seed in Troy, even though she knew Troy was not the best soil for her to grow in and bloom. The word “bloom” means to “be in full beauty or health, and flourish.” This tells us that Rose knew that the family she creates with Troy is not going to be amazing, but she still held on to Troy and tries to keep the family together. Rose tells Troy this now to show that she feels hopeless

Rose was disheartened hearing the news of Troy’s affair with Alberta, and have not talked to Troy for six months. During these six months, Troy has been coming home late and made no further efforts to mend their relationship. Rose becomes very frustrated living like this, so on an early afternoon, she tries to talk to Troy and convince him to come home directly from work. Troy’s response is not something you would expect from someone who did wrong in their relationship. He said, “‘All of a sudden, after all this time, you want to talk to me, huh? You ain’t wanted to talk to me for months. You ain’t wanted to talk to me last night. You ain’t wanted no part of me then. What you wanna talk to me about now? ”’ (Wilson 73). This quote tells us that Troy said Rose did not want to talk to him months and days ago, so why does she wants to talk to him now. He responded very rude and brazenly probably because his pride was hurt when Rose didn’t want to talk to him and he was not able to control his “woman”. Another reason could be that he doesn’t know how to make himself subordinate or apologize for cheating in way to show regret or his fault. Instead, he learned from his father to be tough, and that pushed Rose away. This adheres to gender roles of