Fences, By August Wilson

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Fences, written by August Wilson, is a short play that overall revolves around racism. The author chooses to show us this theme through the main character, Troy, and his working days in America’s 1950s. This is done by showing what Troy is struggling with and dealing with in both his relationships and his professional life. Troy is a black garbage man who, in his work life, is fighting to feel more privileged so that he is able to be a driver for the trash trucks. With this on his plate, he is also trying to keep a family together by over controlling his wife and son Cory. The fence in the play symbolizes both the mental and physical walls forced by racism. His son Cory is a kid who just graduated high school. He achieved a scholarship to play college football and doing that, he …show more content…

The setting of the story is an older two story brick house that has a lot of character to it. It has a rickety porch that needs painting done to it. The porch is occupied by two rocking chairs and an ice box. To complete the house, there's a small dirt yard with a partial fence and a big tree. This applies to the theme of racism too, because of the time this was in. The 1950s were supposed to be better with no segregation, but they just still weren’t. Troy worked for a garbage company that was organized according to a racial hierarchy privileged by whites, since exclusively white men are hired to drive the company’s garbage trucks, while black men are only hired as garbage collectors. The fence serves as a racial aspect in the setting and this is because it keeps them and their home together without separation. Act 1 scene 1 produces many things to back up racism in a setting. It states, “I ain’t worried about them firing me. They gonna fire me cause I asked a question? That’s all I did. I went to Mr. Rand and asked him, “Why?” Why did you get the white men driving and the colored lifting? Told him, “what’s the matter, don’t I

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