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Summary of Act 1 Fences by August Wilson
Summary of Act 1 Fences by August Wilson
Fences by August Wilson literary devices
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A fence provides a barrier intended to keep something in or possibly keep something else out. The hurdles of those that try or wish to cross boundaries that hold them back is the focus of the play Fences by August Wilson. Throughout the play He creates an extraordinary symbolic idea behind the fences built around his house. As the story progresses the various symbolic meanings of fences are revealed. Wilson’s play is a story of injustice, repressed feelings, and pride set during the 1950s. Troy the main character of the play being a man of pride was also a man of insecurities. The relationship with his own father had always been bitter for him. Although he introduces his father as a devil, he treats his son Cory the same way his father treated …show more content…
him. The racism that he faced at work as a garbage picker had caused him to feel pitiful. Troy's rebellion and frustration set the tone for the play as he struggles for fairness in a society. Society holds no fairness to men of color at the time of 1950. Race interferes with fairness, race that is the ultimate fence in society preventing people of color from attaining The American Dream. There are few allegories in the play -First the racial barrier leading the conflict between the father son relationship in the play. Secondly Troy’s own barrier against death, Thirdly the protective barrier symbolizing Rose’s concern for the family’s unity. The racial struggles on the Maxson’s were revealed early in the play when troy denies letting his son Cory play baseball in college.
He recalls his early years when he was rejected to play in the league because of his skin color. Cory’s determination to play baseball was shattered by the disagreement by Troy. Troy’s refusal in the letting Cory play football shows his ill feelings in this matter. Troy’s past inevitably destroys Cory’s possible future in Football. Troy’s concern over his son’s emotions are displayed when he tells Cory that he had to be extremely skillful to play in the league, he’s better off getting a practical job. Troy’s failure to follow his dream in that career has leaded him to monstrous pain, which he doesn’t want his son to …show more content…
experience. "You go on and get your book-learning so you can work yourself up in 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.” (Wilson, Fences) Although he was concerned about his family and son, he wasn’t very good at conveying that.
Troy Maxson is a beaten down soul who only knows how to push people away and conceals him self in a veil of vulgarity. Therefore, the hopes and aspiration of Cory’s future were crushed because of Troy’s horrendous past. He tried to believe that all his responsibility to the family was to provide shelter, food and needs. Rose builds her symbolic fence to keep her husband and her son together. She attempts to keep her family inside the home. Troy, on the other hand, builds symbolic fences of dedication and responsibility, aspirations so high that neither he nor his sons can live up to them. These emotional fences push people away instead of pulling everyone together. Troy builds yet another barrier by not finishing the fence rose asked him to build. He has a hard to time staying true to Rose. He said that he wants to get away sometimes, and him not finishing the fence is symbolic to him not keeping his promise to stay true to her. The only time they show the fence finished is when Troy dies in the
end. "Cory: How come you ain't never liked me? Troy: Liked you? Who the hell say I got to like you?" In this conversation between father and son, Cory questions Troy's the hidden emotions towards his family. Though he does love his family, and his tenderness and concern are on display in other scenes, Troy has come to a point in his life where he finally becomes broken by the responsibility of caring for them. Responsibility, in Troy's world, is the noblest calling of a man. This responsibility, however, has caused Troy to become a bitter man. He cannot "like" his son because of his own desire that Cory to not become like him.
As a result of Troy being unable to find a place to live or a job he started stealing to get by. Eventually the situation escalated and he murdered someone in a robbery gone wrong; this led to him being sentenced to 15 years in prison. Prison is where he found his love for baseball. He became quite good with a bat and hoped that when he got out he could play professionally. Unfortunately due to the segregation of the MLB Troy was never able to pursue that career and he is resentful of the situation his whole life.This caused him to be a very bitter person for the remainder of his life and this also caused him to shoot down the hopes and dreams of his son Corey by telling him things like “...The white man ain’t gonna let you go nowhere with that football
Throughout the play, pieces of Troy’s background are exposed to the reader. It quickly becomes clear that he was a talented baseball player who could have played professionally if not for the color of his skin. Instead of going on to a successful baseball career, Troy was forced to move on with his life and settle down as a garbage man. Although this is not what he truly wants in his life, it provides stability for him and his family. Similarly to his father, Troy’s son, Cory, is a talented football player who is being scouted for college. However, instead of encouraging him, Troy constantly scolds him, telling him he has to find a ‘real job;’ Troy even tells the scout to leave. This is ultimately because of his jealousy towards Cory’s success in sports, and the fact that Cory possesses the life Troy dreamed of. Many feuds and disagreements are born between the father and son because of their different views.
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.
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.
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.
Troy takes advantage of his brother, Gabriel’s disability money, and eventually ends up being responsible for getting him sent away. He also puts up a fight whenever his oldest son Lyons comes around, refusing to give him money even when Lyons says he will pay Troy back. However, a villain would not care about his family so much, even if the way he shows it is not ideal. Although his relationship with his family is in shambles by the end of the play, he does eventually build the fence for Rose, signifying that he wants to keep her close. If he was a complete villain, he would not have done this. He probably would not have even told Rose about Alberta. He understands what he did was bad, and the fact that he does can allow him to be identified as a tragic hero as well as an antihero. He is still horrible to Cory in the end, and Cory is completely justified for not wanting to attend his father’s funeral. He distinguishes himself from his father, though, being the better man and agreeing to go. The final scene of the play has the gates of Heaven opening for Troy, which means that he was not completely bad after
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...
Throughout the play Fences, by August Wilson, we are introduced to several of the Troy Maxson's family members. We soon learn that because of Troy's personality traits, he is unable to sustain a healthy relationship. Troy is a father, a husband, and a brother, and unfortunately, he makes it impossible for any of those numerous relationships to thrive.
Even though Troy does not physically abuse his children like his father did to him, he verbally abuses them. He treats Cory very callously and unjustly. In a way, Troy is taking out his frustrations of having an unsuccessful baseball career by not allowing Cory to pursue his dream to play football. Troy crushed Cory’s dream. In Act One, scene four, Cory expresses his misery. “Why you wanna do that to me? That w...
... and cadet to Gabriel. Raynell Maxson - Troy's unlawful boy, mothered by Alberta, his lover. Jim Bono - Troy's most friend of over thirty donkey’s years. Cory comes asylum from the Marines in the final spectacle of the sport, try to defy Troy by refusing to go to his obsequies, but Cory changes his mind after portion memories of his adopt with Rose and Raynell. Troy refusal to let his son simulate footy, claiming that he doesn't want Cory to suffer from the same sort of sorrow.Everyone around Troy tries to make him see that times have substitute, and that Cory will have a mend chance. Cory Maxson - The teenage son of Troy and Rose Maxson. Like his father, Cory courtship pastime, and this is his one fortune to go to college. Their liveliness in the numbers game show Rose and Lyons' opinion in gambling for a more futurition. Bono is a addicted husband and countenance.
To begin to understand Troy, we must observe the tumultuous relationship between Troy and his father. Troy's father was most likely born into slavery, or at least slavery-like conditions. This means that his father probably never had a true family of his own, as his brothers, sisters, and parents would not have lived together. Troy's father had little experience in having and maintaining a family-like atmosphere in their home, and this reflects greatly upon Troy. Unfortunately, this was often the case in early African-American culture as the Reconstruction failed to help them from becoming homeless and impoverished.
This makes Troy the antagonist in the story because he is not only hitting up against everyone in the play, but he is also hitting up against himself and ultimately making his life more complicated. The discrimination that Troy faced while playing baseball and the torment he endures as a child shaped him into one of the most dynamic characters in literary history. The central conflict is the relationship between Troy and Cory. The two of them have conflicting views about Cory’s future and, as the play goes on, this rocky relationship crumbles because Troy will not let Cory play collegiate football. The relationship becomes even more destructive when Troy admits to his relationship with Alberta and he admits Gabriel to a mental institution by accident.
In addition, Rose uses the fence, symbolically, to keep Troy in because she wants to keep him close and unknowingly to keep him away from his mistress, Alberta, whom she, (Rose), doesn’t find about until Act 2, Scene 1 of the play. On the contrary, Troy, symbolically, wants to keep people out with the fence. In the play, Troy uses the fence as a way to keep Cory out, this is directly after...
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...
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.