Challenging the Status Quo of Nature vs. Nurture (4) Nurturing children doesn’t necessarily show love; it shows discipline and responsibility that all of us have learned and know. Nature is always a controversial subject because it’s based off our DNA, but our personalities are developed by how we are raised. We are unique and form our own identities later on in life after being nurtured. Society’s views can limit our horizons because of race and having strict right and wrongs. In the play Fences by August Wilson, although Troy Maxon can be seen as controlling, this attribute came from his past, he shows growth and overcomes many obstacles because of the way he is. The conflicts created with his wife and children could be viewed as a disconnection …show more content…
with society and perspectives of the family members. Troy’s childhood, with the way his father treated him shaped him into the father he is to Cory but the parenting aspects changed.
Troy’s father made Troy respect him and others, and learn that when there are duties to be done they should be completed to the best of his ability. However, if these two standards plus others weren’t followed, Troy didn’t have limitations just needed to eventually learn the lessons. Without limitations Troy had the ability to keep making the same mistakes. Troy decided at a young age, that when he was disrespected there wasn’t any more lessons to learn from his father. The disrespect pushed Troy to passed his limits because it was against his girlfriend. Troy respects woman and when his father tried to rape his girlfriend, he was …show more content…
done. Troy as a father, didn’t want to follow his father’s footsteps, instead he used the lessons he learned from his father to become a stronger man. He has humor towards stereotypical situations, and he teaches Cory the same lessons, but structured them using baseball terms, strikes, to limit the amount of times Cory can disrespect or not follow a standard. Cory eventually “fights” back during a confrontation with a bat but neither of them physically injury each other “Troy’s front yard is literally turned into a battleground during confrontations with his younger son, Cory.” Troy’s stern upbringing cause him to pass along a legacy of bitterness and anger to Cory that is viewed as too much by Cory and ends up creating a wedge between them. Even though Troy went through a lot as a child, needing to take on the world a lone, and getting mistreated, “the role of a father is the most complex” (Napel 208), probably because no one can ever prepare for parenthood, the only foundation you have to use is what you were taught. Children most of the time are who they’re parents are but it seems like that type of cycle skipped a generation because Cory doesn’t fit in that category. He goes against it, by standing up for himself early on and by asserting himself, by challenging alpha role shows that Cory has become a man through the lessons but sooner and in different ways and aspects than his father. Troy shouldn’t be seen as weak even though, he left his father’s house instead of confronting the problems. Troy actually has strength, and seen as a “batter/warrior by Koprince by, “fighting to earn a living and to stay alive in a world that repeatedly discriminates against him…He tells Rose: “You got to guard [the plate] closely… always looking for the curve-ball on the inside corner. You can’t afford to let none get past you. You can’t afford a call strike. If you going down… you going down swinging” (69). (Koprince 354).Troy uses baseball analogies, and his personality is very closed minded because he basis reality on his facts and real life experiences. Baseball consists of structure and rules that need to be followed or you won’t be able to succeed in the game. To Troy without the skills or obeying life would make him less of a man. One of the first baseball references was when, “Troy tells Rose that when he married her, he fooled everyone by bunting: “I was safe. I had me a family. A job. I wasn’t gonna get that last strike. I was on first looking for one of them boys to knock me in. To get me home”’ (70) (Koprince 352). By bunting Troy was settling, and by settling he actually didn’t do something just for himself because he gave Rose a man she can trust and be herself with. But, settling lead to him wanting to get enjoyment in another aspect. His life was becoming too routine which lead to him, “engag[ing] in an extramarital affair- a behavior that he compares to a base runner’s impulse to steal second: “Then when I saw the gal… she firmed up my backbone. And I got to thinking if I tried…I just might be able to steal second. Do you understand after eighteen years I wanted to steal second”’ (70) (Koprince 352)? Commitment was shown by Troy being with Rose for eighteen years but needing another woman to “firm up [his] backbone”, proves that he is with Rose as a safety net. He got everything needed out of life and ended up pleasing his father by finding a good woman. The safety net also kept him out of imprisonment but he prisons himself figuratively with the fence to show that this house has all my possessions but I can be another person outside of it. Even when Troy cheats, he finds a way out of his wrong doing showing that he is witty and that came from,“the game of baseball [that] ultimately taught him how to live his life- how to fight heroically when the odds are against him and how to find dignity in the struggle of life” (Koprince 357). Everyone can put themselves in Troy’s shoes because even through hardships there are positives outcomes, and by relating life to something you love helps you understand why certain things happen to you. Besides Troy using baseball metaphors he also references fences. The physical fence was seen differently by everyone but Troy’s perspective, “the fence represents added restrictions placed upon him. Thus he half-heartedly erects one section of the fence at a time and completes the job only after accepting a challenge from Bono” (Shannon 203). The challenge goes back to baseball, meaning that Troy will put time into something if its competition based or to prove something. Bono is his best friend that he met in prison but he has shine a certain type of light on Troy. Troy doesn’t seem the type to have many friends because he can’t even convey his thought processes right to his family. But Bono actually has Troy how to be human, meaning that to learn to forgive and how to interact with people, Bono is the voice of reason, or Troy’s conscience. Through Troy’s struggles we learn that the little things matter in life because domino effects happen all the time.
Even though it took Troy forever to finish the fence it, “becomes a gauge for his life, during which he experiences both literal and figurative incarceration. He is fenced off from society during a lengthy prison term; he is fenced out of the Major Leagues because of racial segregation; and after he initiates the breakup of his family, he is fenced out of his own home as well as out of the hearts of Rose and Cory” (Shannon 203-04). A fence usually means protection, but Troy got the negative connotation related to being shut out. He was so set in his ways, that his family didn’t see eye to eye and by society not accepting him, and proving he is worthy wasn’t enough he just stops fighting eventually but leaves with a legacy. He never gave up and spread his word of wisdom, even though people didn’t want to listen. He gave in to death, giving his power to turn his property into the visible recognition of his human properties, such that his responsibilities to his family, his athletic prowess, and his physical presence confirm his ability to confront Death- and hence construct his life- on his own terms. (210) Troy never had anyone tell him what to do after his father’s strict ways. He shaped his life based off how he was treated. He didn’t want to be walked on anymore; by setting standards for yourself keeps you centered. Troy isnt perfect, no one is but we show
strength when we get over our fears and conform them into something that can help us succeed in life.
Reading literature allows the reader to experience feelings of others through literary characters of largely differing backgrounds. This leads to an increased sensitivity and consideration of those around us, which is also called having empathy. August Wilson uses strong examples of metaphors, diction, personification, and various other devices to make the reader empathize with Rose in his play Fences by allowing us to dive deeper into her thoughts and feelings.
Troy?s damaging relationship with his father had a dual effect in his life. It created a conscious awareness of how not to conduct his life and built fences, which inevitably recreated his father in his personality. These fences shaped and formed his relationships with his son. Due to his conscious efforts to not become what he did hold that were his father?s. The narrowness of his thoughts and ideas about life made him an almost impossible person with whom to have a relationship. These flaws permanently changed the lives of the people around him and built barriers which were too solid to ever be broken.
Mark Twain expresses and displays the reality of the vigorous debate of nature versus nurture in his novel, Pudd’nhead Wilson, through the development of one of the main characters, Tom. In addition to tossing ideas around of nature versus nurture, Twain also does the same in terms of other societal issues that still exist even in modern society, such as gender roles and racism. Yet, through both Tom’s and Chamber’s upbringings and resulting attitudes shown towards the end of the novel, Twain shows that how a person is raised, their privilege, or lack thereof, and their surrounding environment affects their future personality and attitude towards others. Considering all these factors, it is obvious that a person grows up to be an adult that
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.
In the play Fences by August Wilson, Troy is shown as a man who has hurt the people who are closest to him without even realizing it. He has acted insensitive and uncaring to his wife, Rose, his brother, Gabriel and his son, Cory. At the beginning of the story, Troy feels he has done right by them. For example in act 2 scene 1, “I give them fifty dollars and they let him go.” Troy meant that he paid the coach to have Cory off the team. He thought he did a good thing but Cory could’ve gone far if he kept playing football. He feels this throughout the story. He doesn’t realize how much he has hurt them.
We all lead lives filled with anxiety over certain issues, and with dread of the inevitable day of our death. In this play, Fences which was written by the well known playwright, August Wilson, we have the story of Troy Maxson and his family. Fences is about Troy Maxson, an aggressive man who has on going, imaginary battle with death. His life is based on supporting his family well and making sure they have the comforts that he did not have in his own childhood. Also, influenced by his own abusive childhood, he becomes an abusive father who rules his younger son, Cory?s life based on his own past experiences. When the issue comes up of Cory having a bright future ahead of him if he joins the football team, Troy refuses to allow him. The root of this decision lies in his own experience of not being allowed to join the baseball team due to the racial prejudices of his time. He does not realize that times have changed and because of his own past, he ruins his son?s life too. His wife, Rose, also plays a big part in the way the story develops. Troy has an affair with another woman called Alberta. When Rose finds out about the affair, she is devastated. In this situation we find out what her own hopes and dreams were. All she wanted was a happy home and family life because of her unstable past. The theme of this story is how a black family, in the late fifties to early sixties, faces the problems that many families are faced with, but in their own...
Perhaps the most important and fulfilling relationship a man can be involved in is one with his own flesh and blood. At the beginning of the play, we learn that Troy has two sons, Lyons and Cory. Lyons is Troy's son by a previous marriage and Cory is Troy's son by his current marriage. Neither Lyons nor Cory share a close relationship with their father and Troy is mostly to blame for that.
There are many causes that molded Troy Maxson into the dishonest, cantankerous, hypocritical person that he is in August Wilson’s play, “Fences” (1985). Troy had an exceptionally unpleasant childhood. He grew up with a very abusive father that beat him on a daily basis. His mother even abandoned him when he was eight years old. In this play, Troy lies habitually and tries to cover himself up by accusing others of lying. He is a very astringent person in general. His dream of becoming a major league baseball player was crushed as a result of his time spent in jail. By the time he was released from jail, he was too old to play baseball efficiently.
Troy has a right to be angry, but to whom he takes his anger on is questionable. He regularly gets fed up with his sons, Lyons and Cory, for no good reason. Troy disapproves of Lyons’ musical goals and Cory’s football ambitions to the point where the reader can notice Troy’s illogical way of releasing his displeasure. Frank Rich’s 1985 review of Fences in the New York Times argues that Troy’s constant anger is not irrational, but expected. Although Troy’s antagonism is misdirected, Rich is correct when he observes that Troy’s endless anger is warranted because Troy experiences an extremely difficult life, facing racism, jail, and poverty.
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.
struggle for survival. Troy has come to believe, from his experiences, that blacks cannot get something for nothing and that life does not owe blacks anything. Due to this, Toy ?fences in? everything that he loves to protect his possessions from the monster of society. Thus there is a symbolization of Troy building a physical fence in the yard but building an emotional fence of protection around his family and friends. He believes that blacks owe it to themselves to make an honest, hard-earned living and that is the only way to survive. Troy states sarcastically that Lyans is blowing his...
The trials of Troy’s life are filled with racial discrimination which mentally scars him. His attitude and behavior towards others are governed by experiences and in most cases he uses the symbol of death in his fictional stories to represent the oppression of the white man. The play Fences, which is largely about Troy, begins with Troy entertaining Bono and Rose with an epic tale of his struggle with death or in other word...
Troy was met with many hardships in his life that left him feeling like he needed to protect himself from the things that have hurt him and could hurt him. The fence that Rose told Troy to build symbolized the barrier that he puts up to protect himself from the things that have hurt him and could hurt him in the future. Troy uses the fence to symbolize the emotional separation and neglect he has towards his family; Rose and Cory in particular. The main reason why the fence took the whole play to complete is because Troy neglected it and spent his time with his mistress which symbolized his neglect towards his family. Cory brings this to attention when he tells Troy that he "don't never do nothing, but go down to Taylors'", which is obviously his mistress’s home (Henderson). This was Troy’s f...
Literature is our ancient form of a hard drive where we can read something from the past and connect with our present. The more we read, the more literate we become. Therefore, we have the opportunity to open our minds to more ideas and try to understand the way other human beings think. From the beginning of time human beings have developed methods to communicate with each other. Our ability to develop these methods have allowed us to pass our knowledge from one generation to another. This development has given us the opportunity to expand our knowledge to higher standards. Literate work is beneficial to all of us by allowing us to understand others way of thinking, the ability to analyze characters, learn about the authors experiences and stimulate our mind.
Troy Maxson is portrayed as a big man with a very big personality and a lot of dignity. He is a bitter guy who believes that he owes his family absolutely everything, from his money down to even his own soul. He is the type of man who wants more than what he can get and that is what drives him but it is also that very “want” that leads him into a very tragic life. Writing on the idea of Troy being a tragic hero, Martin says “Troy’s strengths are found in his willingness to fulfill his duty at all times. He also speaks directly to his dignity regarding his position of work and his career in baseball) Martin, 2) “Fences” Troy has many