Fences, a play written by August Wilson, is a dramatic master piece revealing the outrageous reality of an African American around the 1950s. Within this American play, we are confronted essentially to how happiness, love, friendship but also grief, conflict and misery can exists among a family. In fact, one could wonder, how the title of the play is actually related to all the previous themes. In August Wilson’s Fences, the significance of fences represents the importance of keeping a family together. This is shown through symbol and stage directions. Wilson’s play demonstrates how the significance of fences represents the value of keeping a family together through its use of symbol. As a matter of fact, Rose is definitively the symbol …show more content…
She keeps Raynell in but exclude Troy from her life because he is the reason why the family couldn’t be entirely close. Indeed, his selfish decisions build the bridge between him and his relatives. On the positive side, those decisions help some characters to bound even more. As a matter of fact, the relationship between Cory and Rose is stronger due to the similar situation they both live; trying to stand up against Troy. In fact, Cory will firmly defend his mother, when she and Troy were fighting over the Alberta incident, by pushing Troy away from her: "(CORY comes up behind TROY and grabs him. TROY, surprised, is thrown off balance just as CORY throws a glancing blow that catches him on the chest and knocks him down)" (2,1). Thus, Rose carries Raynell within the yard, where the fences surround them, but rejects Troy’s presence around her family. It is evident that this symbol illustrates the relation between the proximity of the Maxson family and the significance of the fences surrounding their yard. Hence, through the use of symbol, this play shows how the significance of fences represents the importance of preserving members of a family …show more content…
Every conversation, physical interaction or report of important stories between the characters happens in the yard of the Maxson family, where the fences surround them: "The setting is the yard which fronts the only entrance to the MAXSON household" (Setting). Then, it is possible to conclude from the previous passage that the family members are always interacting in the yard. There is no dialogue in the house or outside on the streets. With this in mind, the playwright wants to put the emphasis on this particular location to make the readers understand the significance of the fences around the yard. In fact, there is a general belief that the house is commonly the symbol that keeps the members of a family together. Consequently, the house is usually taking care of to make sure it is a safe place for the relatives: "An ancient two-story brick house set back off a small alley in a big-city neighborhood. The entrance to the house is gained by two or three steps leading to a wooden porch badly in need of paint" (Setting). However, in this case, it is the fences that play this gathering and protective role. This is the place where the family laugh, argue and fight together. It is evident that those stage directions illustrates how the fences are crucial for the well-being of the MAXSON family. Hence, through the use of stage
August Wilson’s Fences was centered on the life of Troy Maxson, an African American man full of bitterness towards the world because of the cards he was dealt in life amidst the 1950’s. In the play Troy was raised by an unloving and abusive father, when he wanted to become a Major League Baseball player he was rejected because of his race. Troy even served time in prison because he was impoverished and needed money so he robbed a bank and ended up killing a man. Troy’s life was anything but easy. In the play Troy and his son Cory were told to build a fence around their home by Rose. It is common knowledge that fences are used in one of two ways: to keep things outside or to keep things inside. In the same way that fences are used to keep things inside or outside Troy used the fence he was building to keep out death, his family, and his disappointments in life while Rose used the fence to keep those she cared about inside and help them bond.
August Wilson’s play, Fences, follows the formal conventions of its genre, which helps convey the story to the audience because he uses stage directions, theme, symbolism, and figurative language. Theme and symbolism are an important factor in the play. These two things are the main focus of the play because it gives us a message that the author wants to give us to secretly while we read. A theme that was given in Fences is that oppression does not choose to hurt people of color, but gender as well.
Fences is a play that deals with boundaries that hold people back and the trials and tribulations of those who try or wish to cross them. The characters are African-Americans in a time before the civil rights movement, living in an industrial city. The main character, Troy Manxson, is a talented baseball player who never had the chance to let his talent shine, with restrictions on race and his time in jail as the main obstacles that held him back. He is now hard working and loves his family. However, he tends to exaggerate and has his faults, most prevalent a wandering eye when it comes to women. His wife, Rose, is younger than him and loyal, but she may not have known about all of his faults when she married him. At the beginning of the play, Troy has a son from a previous marriage, Lyons, and a son with Rose, Cory. Also appearing are Bono, Troy’s drinking buddy, and Gabriel, his brother.
issues of civil rights he struggled with in his life. The ―fences‖ in the play are a representation of
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.
Babe Ruth once said “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from coming up to bat” (Koprince). In the book Fences by August Wilson, Troy Maxson and his son Cory had many disagreements. They argued after Troy told Cory’s high school football coach that Cory could not play football anymore. After that Troy tells Cory that as long as he lives with him he will follow his instructions and rules (Wilson). Every time they had an argument Troy always told Cory not to strike out with him. One day Cory arrives home from school and sees Troy holding his wife, Cory’s mother, Rose by the arm and she said he was hurting her (Wilson). Cory strikes out with Troy when they fought in the front yard after that situation. Troy puts Cory out of the house because he says Cory thought he was grown now. The author uses the actions of the characters, the symbolisms, and allusions to show how the theme of baseball connects to the plot of the play.
“Fences” is a play written by August Wilson about a family living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1957. Troy and Rose have been married for 18 years and have two grown children; Lyons and Corey. Troy is an uptight, prideful man who always claims that he does not fear death, the rest of his family is more laxed and more content with their lives than Troy is. As the play progresses the audience learns more about Troy’s checkered past with sharecropping, his lack of education and the time he spent in prison. The audience also learns more about Troy’s love for baseball and the dreams he lost due to racism and segregation. In the middle of the play the author outwardly confirms what the audience has been suspecting; Troy isn’t exactly satisfied with his life. He feels that he does not get to enjoy his life and that his family is nothing more than a responsibility. Getting caught up in this feelings, Troy cheats on Rose with a woman named Alberta and fathers a child with the mistress. By the end of the play Troy loses both of the women and in 1965, finally gets the meeting with death that he had been calling for throughout the play. Over the
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...
In august wilson “Fences” talks about how each character want to build a fence around them to keep them in, while the others do not want to be fence in, and they want to be free and follow their dreams.
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.
Conflicts and tensions between family members and friends are key elements in August Wilson's play, Fences. The main character, Troy Maxon, has struggled his whole life to be a responsible person and fulfill his duties in any role that he is meant to play. In turn, however, he has created conflict through his forbidding manner. The author illustrates how the effects of Troy's stern upbringing cause him to pass along a legacy of bitterness and anger which creates tension and conflict in his relationships with his family.
August Wilson uses the symbol of a 'fence' in his play, Fences, in numerous occasions. Three of the most important occasions fences are symbolized are by protection, Rose Maxson and Troy Maxson's relationship, and Troy against Mr. Death. Throughout the play, characters create 'fences' symbolically and physically to be protected or to protect. Examples such as Rose protecting herself from Troy and Troy protecting himself form Death. This play focuses on the symbol of a fence which helps readers receive a better understanding of these events. The characters' lives mentioned change around the fence building project which serves as both a literal and a figurative symbol, representing the relationships that bond and break in the backyard.
...in character of “Fences,” fights to be a father with nothing to go on but the harsh example set by his own father, which resembles a symbolic fence separating the relationship between father and son. There is also Troy's son, Cory, a boy becoming a man, coming of age under Troy's sovereignty. The play shows that no matter how old you are, you're constantly measuring yourself against the example set by your parents. Even if the reader’s family is nothing like the Maxsons, one may possibly connect with this basic human struggle.
The play “Fences”, written by August Wilson, shows a detailed interpretation about the life of a typical African-American family living in the twentieth century. Troy Maxson, the main character and the man of the house, a strict man with the family, hardworking, and at the same time a pleasure seeker. Jim Bono is Troy’s best friend from thirty odd years, a very friendly fellow who works with Troy and is really close to him. They both enjoy the company of each other every Friday on a bottle of an alcoholic beverage. Both characters are characterized based on being typical African American men living in the twentieth century. Even though Troy and Bono are very close friends, their actions and personalities sometimes conflict each other; this essay will focus on similarities and differences between the two characters to prove that even though they are close friends and acquire similarities, they still have different believes and behaviors.
Fences is a play that was written by August Wilson, it follows the life of Tony Maxson, a garbage man, who throughout the play is building a fence around his home. The title, Fences, has more significance than one may have thought at first glance. The title is very symbolic in the perspective of almost every character in the play. Within Act 2, Scene 1 of the play, when discussing the reason as to why Rose wanted the fence up, with Cory and Troy, Bono says “Some people build fences to keep people out… and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you.”. In the perspective of Rose, she wants to keep people in and with Troy it is the complete opposite.