Fences Analysis What comes to your mind when you think of fences ? Do you think of an enclose barrier or physical barrier that seperates something or outsiders ? The play , “Fences” written by August Wilson explores an African American family involvement in racism, insufficency, love and respect . In the play it aim attention toards the Mason’s family. Troy Maxon, who is the man of the house, is fifty years young and still can not verbally recognize that things change, he cannot come terms with life. Troy’s son , Cory, was guarreteed a scholarship for his skills in football for college, Troy just had to sign papers so he can play. Instead of allowing his son to pursue his dreams with football, Troy crushes them. Troy’s past life was very difficult, …show more content…
due to racial discrimination he was not able to play baseball and struggle to overcome it. He only thinks he is doing what is best for his son. “The white man aint gonna let you get nowhere with that football noway. You go on and get your book learning so you can work (Act 1. Scene 2).” Troy views the whole situation as a lost cause, refusing his son to pursue football and college. Thusly, Fences probe into that Troy commit himself to doing wrong for thinking it is right. His decisions ruins his family and thier future. Next, Rose Maxon, she is an average 1950’s house wife and mom, she can not help but to take of her family.
Everything that she does envole around them . She made sure everything was good for Cory and especially Troy but her relationship with him comes to a disturbance. He has and she is also pregnant with his child. As anticapated Rose isolate herself from Troy to keep safe mentally and physically. “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 .. (Act 2. Scene 1).” Rose gave Troy her all, she did everything for and with him, threw her life away for his. Because of Troy’s michievousness he has tooken the idea of a settle family life from her. She served her ties to him and he destroyed …show more content…
that. As the poem continue, Cory Maxon is expose that he wants to be like his father, but he also wants to departure him.
He always lived up to his dad aspect but Cory felt like Troy was not satified.”You aint never gave me nothing! You aint never done nothing but hold me back (Act 2 Scene 4).” Troy’s descion on not letting Cory play football tore theme apart. Cory wants to avoid all the negativity and not live the life of insecurities. Cory plans to become his own person (man) and make his own life. After a while after Caory leaves, Troy dies and Cory returns. Cory tells his mom he is not going to his dad funeral but she disagreed with that discion. “The time has come to put aside. Just take it and set it over there on the shelf and forget about it (Act 2 Scene 5).” In order to be free, Cory has to forget about the past to grow into the person he wants to be. Troy had to make the same decison to gt what he felt like he
derseves. Each family member had a fence through the story. Troy hassle to fight to be the man and father he was supposed to be for his family but he really did not have a past model. Cory is trying to succed manhood, instead to choose excatly what he has been taught. Lastly, Rose had to build bridge, get over it, burn the bridge so she will not have to be tempted to cross it again. In closing, the fence in the play was signifance of things that need to stay or seperate the family from contradictory conditions. It represented the containment, protection, and division. Family involvemt is a valuable thing , they all have their stories.
The diction used in this scene shows the strength in Rose’s voice. “I’ll take care of your baby for you… cause… like you say… she’s innocent… and you can’t visit the sins of the father upon the child. A motherless child has got a hard time. From right now... this child got a mother. But you a womanless man.” This scene is very emotional and climatic. The bluntness of Rose’s words and the lack of sympathy she has for Troy shows the reader how little love Rose has left for him. The last sentence of the quote is really what leaves the reader’s jaw dropped. Wilson allows Rose to say so much with so little. In addition, her strength in this scene is very admirable. For me, I see my own mother in Rose. Most people admire their mother and see them as a mentally strong person. That being said, I am able to empathize with Rose because I am able to relate her to my own mother. I think that if my mother was in the same situation as Rose, she would have taken the baby in as her own as
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.
...e he ruined his marriage by cheating on her. Rose takes care of Troy’s newborn baby Raynell because she believes that Raynell needs a mother figure in her life and not a worthless man; she then kicks Troy out of the house. After Troy dies, Rose forgives him. Rose married Troy after he was released from prison. Troy knows that he is unsuccessful in accomplishing what he wanted for him and his family. Troy is a garbage man who feels that the white man kept him from doing a lot of things that he wanted to do in life. Troy does not have many goals in life. Troy is in own little world and does not like to be judged.
...y as a responsible person. He overlooks Cory?s efforts to please him and make a career for his son, learned from his past with his own father, is responsible for the tension that builds between him and Cory. This tension will eventually be the cause of the lost relationship that is identical to the lost relationship that is identical to the lost relationship between Troy and his father.
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
... does tell the truth. He talks truthfully about his father and how he is a lot like him. He also admits that the only difference with him and his father is that he does not beat his children. Troy provided for his family. Additionally, even though he was very tough on Cory, he admitted that he was responsible for taking care of him and the rest of the family. In Act One, scene three, Troy explains to Cory why he treats him the way he does. Cory asks, “How come you ain’t never liked me?” (1346). Troy can’t admit to like his own son, so points out that he doesn’t have to like him in order to provide for him. “[…] ‘Cause it’s my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you! […] I ain’t got to like you” (1347). Deep down, somewhere in the dark abyss that is Troy’s heart, he sincerely cares about his family. He just has a very different way of articulating it.
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...
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.
life in the mid to late twentieth century and the strains of society on African Americans. Set in a small neighborhood of a big city, this play holds much conflict between a father, Troy Maxson, and his two sons, Lyons and Cory. By analyzing the sources of this conflict, one can better appreciate and understand the way the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work.
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.
Fences are designed to protect a property by keeping people or things out. The obverse of this is to keep things or people in. In August Wilson’s Fences, the motif of a fence saturates the work, hence the title. The motif refers to both senses of the use of a fence. Some of the characters in the play build proverbial fences to keep other characters out of their life. However, as in the case of Rose, she builds her fences to keep her family in, so she never has to let go. The motif of the fences develops the character of Rose throughout the play.
Bigotry is all over, it is all around us and at most times it dwells inside us. Bigotry fundamentally alludes to the characterization of individuals with certain unmistakable characteristics. It is to intentionally incur verbal, physical or mental assaults on others while a few utilize it to essentially recognize or separate from one another. In this play Fences by August Wilson, Troy Maxson is an African American and works as for a garbage pickup company. Wilson's most clear purposeful in the play ‘Fences’, is to appear how racial isolation makes social and financial crevices between African Americans and whites. Fences take place in the late 1950’s onto 1965 and during this time racism and segregation are still going on. Bigotry plays an
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.
To go beyond his past, Troy struggles with the responsibilities of being the breadwinner. He is trying to escape a bad childhood and attempts to support his family. His main goal is to provide for his family like his own father never did, although his character doesn’t always make the best decisions. To do this he works hard every day doing a job that most wouldn’t want. Troy is a character who takes his responsibility for his family above all else. Troy wants to break this cycle of becoming like his father, so he took on a job no one would want to provide for his family, as this is his most important goal in life, it’s something he takes very seriously. His seriousness leads to the conflict in his life. Troy's need for responsibility stems from his own fathers lack when it came to himself and his family. This causes a second generation of father and son conflict. As much as Troy despised his father, he inevitably becomes his father by picking up his characteristics. His actions of adultery and his self-illusion of care for his sons demonstrates this. The pressure to correct the past leads to an Act of Shame when he cheats on his wife. This as a tragic hero is his downfall, in this moment he is no longer the per...
Although it seems as though Cory is determined to escape from what his father wants, he still takes the same path his father went on. This ironic situation is shown when Troy says "I don’t want him to be like me! I want him to move as far away from my life as he can get” (Wilson 481). Throughout the play, Cory is also trying to pursue this individuality, but ends up trying to chase after his dreams in a sport just like Troy. Cory faces a battle inside him as he tries to form a unique identity separate from his father; however, Troy is resistant to Cory's attempts at individuality. Troy's efforts to restrain Cory from being an individual character makes Cory take on drastic measures, such as verbal and physical violence, in an effort to become the person he wants to be. Troy restrains Cory from pursuing his dreams so much that it builds up to a point where Cory points out the truth that Troy is so afraid to hear; “Just cause you didn't have a chance! You just scared I'm gonna be better than you, that's all" (Wilson 493). Sports acts as a barrier between them from ever becoming close, even though they are both interested in them. This confrontation results in Troy counting numbers until Cory