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Recommended: Explain the use of symbolism in fences

In both plays gardening and plants are used as a metaphor to represent the character’s own failures and regrets but also their hopes and dreams. In Fences an explosive scene takes place at the end of Act One when Troy reveals to Rose that he has been having an affair and that his mistress is pregnant, shattering any semblance of stability left in their rocky relationship. Rose is heartbroken and tells Troy, “ I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams...and I buried them inside you. 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 the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom”(71). The true depth of Rose’s hopelessness is shown in this quote. Before this moment she believed she would be strong enough to survive Troy’s rocky soil but now she realizes that she will never bloom, that her life is just full of regret. Willy Loman also communicates his regrets about life into planting and gardening. In the climax of the play Biff and Happy abandon Willy in the restaurant where they were supposed to be having dinner together. Willy is obviously upset and hurt by his sons but he doesn’t start crying or yelling, instead he becomes insistent that he needs to buy packets of seeds and start a garden. Willy asks the waiter where he can buy some seeds: “I’ve got to get some seeds right away. Nothing’s planted, I don’t have a thing in the ground”(122). Similar to Rose’s realization, Willy loses all the hope he had for his son’s future. Rose’s metaphor of the garden conveyed her deep depression and regrets about marrying Troy and for Willy the garden is a symbol of both regret - for how he raised his sons - and new hope ...

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...eball bat reappear but take on a new meaning. Towards the end of the play there is a scene between Troy and Cory where the tension that has been building up between them comes to a breaking point. They get into a huge arguement and at one point Cory picks up the baseball bat, the same bat that he swung so much earlier, and advances on Troy, now swinging the bat with menace, Cory takes two swings at Troy and misses both times. “[Then] Cory and Troy struggle over the bat. The struggle is fierce and fully engaged. Troy ultimately is stronger, and takes the bat from Cory and stands over him ready to swing. [But] he stops himself”(88). Like Biff and his sports equipment or Willy and the tennis racket, the baseball bat had represented hope for a better relationship but turned into something darker; a weapon that breaks up a family, a symbol of regret and lost hope.

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