The Simple Wooden Fence In August Wilson's Fences

Fences, typically, are easy structures to assemble. Although the labor seems to not be challenging, it takes Troy Maxson over six months to build the simple wooden fence for Rose. The fence in the play Fences is much more complex than your typical wooden structure used to keep things in or out. August Wilson utilizes it as an extended metaphor throughout the entire play. Much as the literal fence is slowly built, a figurative fence is created between Troy and the characters of Cory, Bono, and Rose.
The first main argument that happens between Cory and Troy is because Cory is not there to help Troy work on the fence due to football practice. The argument escalated as Cory pleads his father to meet a recruiter so he can continue playing football

at the collegiate level. Troy constantly suppresses his son due to his resentment towards the sports industry.
The white man ain’t gonna let you get nowhere with football noway. You go on and get your book-learning s 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. You go on and learn how to put your hands to some good use. Besides haulin people’s garbage. (Wilson 1051)

Troy is letting his own failures interfere with Cory’s dreams.

This goes far beyond him being unfair to Cory, but is also hinders Cory from meeting his full potential. The ability to continue with football would not only offer him scholarships, but the chance to even attend college. Troy’s inability to look past himself and to realize times have changed, hurts not only himself but his son too. These selfish actions begin to push Cory and Troy apart. This is the beginning of Troy’s figurative fence secluding him from his family.
Not only does Troy inhibit Cory’s growth in football, he also inhibits his growth as a person. Towards the end of Act one Scene three Cory poses a question to Troy asking, “How come you ain’t never liked me?” (1052). Earlier in this scene, Cory continuously tries to impress Troy with his knowledge of the world including T.V.s, Pirates, or even his act of quitting his job so he can focus on football to get in to a good college. Troy is having none of it and consistently knocks Cory down all through the climax of the scene while saying, “Like you? I go out here every morning...bust my butt...putting up with them crackers every day… cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw. (pause) It’s my job my responsibility! You understand that? A man got to take care of his family” (1053; original). This verbal abuse and making Cory feel as if his father only tolerates him because he is his son drives them further apart. The distance between the two becomes more apparent as Troy adds more pieces to the

fence.
In the beginning of Act two, Bono and Troy are discussing Troy’s choice of wood for the fence. Bono states, “Nigger, why you got to go and get some hard wood? You ain’t doing nothing but building a little old fence. Get you some soft pine wood. That’s all you need” (1065). Bono carries on his argument later in the page by saying, “You can put it up with pine wood and it’ll stand as long as you gonna be here looking at it” (1065). As the scene grows Bono becomes more jaded towards Troy’s stubbornness. He believes Troy should start taking a softer approach in life and his relationships otherwise he will falter.
This all builds up to Bono’s most important line, “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” (1066; original). Instead of Troy reflecting on what Bono has said and realizing his faults, he instead gets offended and angry. Troy doesn’t get the concept that Rose is persistently trying to build a fence around the entire family that will last forever. Troy’s lack of acknowledging Bono’s advice only drives him further from everyone in his life as they realize that is all Rose wants.
Again, Troy doesn’t understand what Bono is trying to say to him by saying, “Rose a good woman, Troy” (1066). Troy takes this as Bono is saying that he isn’t good enough for Rose because he is seeing Alberta. He continues his narcissism further by saying, “But seems like this woman just stuck onto me where I can't shake her loose. I done wrestled with it, tried to throw her off me...but she just stuck tighter. Now she’s stuck for good” (1067; original). Bono deeply respects Troy and is only trying to help him in realizing his flaws, but yet again Troy is just setting himself into a different yard divided by a fence from everyone.
In hope that Troy will change, Bono makes a bet with him to finish the fence. A fence that would keep all his family together including himself. He ends the encounter by saying, “I wanna see you put that fence up by yourself. That’s what I want to see. You’ll be another six months without me” (1067). Bono has lost most of his faith in Troy and his ability to keep his relationships alive. He has a glimmer of hope, that maybe Troy’s stubborness to be right and love for money will keep it going to improve his relationships.
After Bono leaves the yard, Rose appears and Troy begins to tell her of his infidelity. Where most characters give in to Troy’s charismatic personality, Rose constantly puts him in reality. Rose blatantly calls out Troy by saying, “I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn’t take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom. But I held on to you, Troy” (1071). Rose has done her part here. She has planted herself in hopes that she could grow with Troy even though she knew it was unlikely. She is ripping down boards that have been built between them hoping to break through to him. She finishes out by saying, “You always talking about what you give...and what you don’t have to give. But you take too. You take… and don’t even know nobody’s giving!”(1072; original). Within her monologue, Rose sums up all of Troy’s flaws for him to see, but again he doesn’t let any of what Rose is saying in. Instead, he takes all the pieces of the fence that Rose tried to break and boards them back up.
The end of Act two scene two shows Troy nailing the final boards in the figurative fence. He does not take Alberta’s death lightly and begins to argue with death again. Within his soliloquy, “he talks with a quiet rage that threatens to consume him and declares: I’m going to build a fence around what belongs to me. And then I want you to stay on the other side. See? You stay over there until you’re ready for me. Then you come on in” (1075; original with stage directions). Although he is specifically speaking to death, this is generalized to the whole cast. By this point Troy has destroyed or nearly destroyed all of his personal relationships within the play. The fence is built. It keeps Troy to one side and everyone else on the other.
Proof of his ruined relationships become very apparent through the rest of the play. When he is bringing Raynell home he tries to guilt Rose into caring for the baby. He plays a sympathy card of, “You and them boys is my family. You and them and this child is all I got in the world” (1076). Rose being the caring woman she is responds with, “From right now… this child got a mother. But you a womanless man.” Typically, with Troy’s charisma, this would have worked for Troy. At this point though, Rose is disinterested in Troy’s games. She has given up on Troy due to his lack of respect to her and her family.
Even Bono who stuck by Troy’s side for thirty-odd years has disappeared from Troy’s life. Bono stops by for the first time in six months and Troy’s response is, “What you stop by and see me for? You ain’t stopped by in a month of Sundays” (1078). The vibrancy between Bono and Troy is gone. He has realized the the honesty, capacity for hard-work, and strength that he used to evaluate from Troy is just a facade (1031).
Although the tension and distance can be felt between Troy and Cory throughout the entire play, it reaches a breaking point during act two scene four. Troy is sitting drunk on the steps and Cory and him begin to quarrel over Cory trying to enter the house. Things start to get more heated when Cory says, “I ain’t got to say excuse me to you. You don’t count around here no more” (1079). This is the first time Cory completely defends himself in front of Troy. He continues his courageous acts saying things like, “It ain’t your yard. You took Uncle Gabe’s money he got from the army to buy this house and then you put him out” (1081). The argument soon becomes physical as Cory grabs Troy’s bat and begins to swing at him. Ultimately, Troy gets the bat from Cory and tells him to leave. Troy then tells him that his stuff will be on the other side of the fence (1082). This is a physical representation of the fence between Cory and Troy. Cory does not return until he hears of Troy’s death about seven years later.
With a fence, there has to be an opening to allow access in or out, a gate. Troy’s gate was not created by himself. Instead, the revelations of Cory and Raynell while singing about Old Blue before Troy’s funeral tears down some of the boards on the fence. He sings, “Old Blue died and I dug his grave” (1087). While singing the song, Cory realizes the fence between him and his father is not only his father’s fault, but his too. Although Troy spent so long pushing everyone away, they have all returned for his funeral. This is Troy’s gate, their understanding of why he acted the way he did. If Troy Maxson did go to Heaven, it would be because he was truly looking out for his family, his biggest responsibility.