August Wilson Failure

veryone makes mistakes and deserves a second chance. Although, this excludes those that abuse the generosity of people’s willingness to give second chances to them. For example, in the play, “Fences” by August Wilson, the main character Troy Maxson repeatedly makes many mistakes that are constantly dismissed by his loved ones, but eventually, Troy reaches his third strike and loses everything, including his loved ones. Troy grew up in a time full of discrimination towards African Americans and never really had the chance to achieve the so-called “American Dream”. Ultimately, it was Troy’s bitterness towards Cory’s opportunity for success and his selfish desires for his personal gain is what led Troy to his downfall, and thus providing August

Wilson’s audience to believe Troy is not a redeemable character.
Throughout the play, August Wilson’s audience is constantly being exposed to Troy’s many attempts at preventing his son, Cory to advance in his football career all due to Troy’s bitterness for not receiving the same opportunities.

The scene starts off with Troy and Cory building the fence. Then Cory leads his father into a conversation about being recruited for football and Troy refuses to give Cory permission to play college football, “Troy: I don’t care where he is coming from. The white man ain’t gonna let you nowhere with that football no way. You go on and get you book-learning so you can work yourself up that A&P or learn how to fix cars or build houses or something, get you a trade. That way you have something can’t nobody take away from you. You go on and learn how to put your hands to some good use. Besides hualing people’s garbage.” (Wilson 35). Troy’s only justification for why Cory is not allowed to play college football is his own beliefs that having a job that allows fair trade in currency is more beneficial than false promises of success coming from a white man. Troy uses the excuse of Cory acquiring a job over football because he does not want to see Cory succeed where he could not himself in the Major Leagues. Additionally,

Troy claims the white man will not let Cory advance in football, which is really suppressed with his own bitterness for not being able to play in the Major Leagues. Later on in the play, Cory comes homes in his football uniform accuses Troy of interfering with his chances of playing football and getting him kicked out of the team. Troy responds to Cory’s accusation, “Troy: The boy lied to me. I told the n*gger if he wanna play football… to keep up his chores and hold down that job at the A&P. That was the conditions. Stopped down there to see Mr.Stawicki…” … “Troy: I ain’t done nothing to you. You done it to yourself.” (Wilson 57). Troy comes up with excuses to justify why he took Cory out of the football team by saying that Cory did not follow up with the conditions he set and that Cory was the one at fault. Troy constantly plays the victim in all situations and pushes the blame onto someone else. Furthermore, Troy never admit to his faults and acknowledges what he did to Cory was completely out of pocket and was committed to an act of jealousy towards Cory’s potential for success in sports. Overall, Troy is constantly trying to hold Cory back from being successful in football for his own selfish reasons that he was never able to reach that level of success himself.