Poetry & Drama: Troy vs Society

August Wilson: Fences

• Fences was written based on the experience of many African American males.

• Personal experience.

- Wilson's stepfather

- Environment (surrounding during his early life)

Thesis:

Society has shaped and traumatized Troy in a way that affects the following:

- His critical thinking

- His marriage

- The relationship with his son

- His job

Troy's character

Throughout the play Troy has some flaws:

1. He has an inability to understand other’s decisions

2. He cannot escape his past

3. He traps his family in an ignorant bubble where decisions are made for them

4. He refuses to accept the fact that society has changed for good

... But he also has some strengths:

1. Hard-working man

2. Provide for his family

3. Good friend

Experience with Society

Troy's early experience:

• Father was hard on him
• He would beat him
• They got into a fight and Troy left (age 14)
• No job for him (too young plus his race)
• Started stealing until caught and went to jail

Experience with Society Cont...

As a baseball player:

• Blacks were not allow to play sports.
• He is traumatized by his bad experience as a baseball player.
• Society refelected his talent because of his race.
• In his early life society would not let an African American person be better than a white one.
• Society crushed his dreams and that made him a closed-minded bitter person.

Experience with Society Cont...

Job experience:

• Troy works picking up garbage
• He claimed that the company was racist
• They had the white people driving the trucks and the rest picking up trash.

Troy blames society for the position he has at his job and implements that for a person like him to get a higher position, he has to fight while white people just get better jobs without putting up a fight.

This affects his critical thinking and just makes him assume his son is going to go through the same experiences as him.

Troy's attitude & critical thinking

• Society has shaped Troy to an eager person who does not believe in change.
• He is ignorant
• Does not respect his family’s choices.

For example:

• Cory wants to play football and Troy does not let him,
• Lyons is pursuing the musician career but he does not approve

- Troy's mind is setup to automatically think that his sons are going to end up like him.

- Society's fault for crushing his dreams, now his sons have to pay

Marriage: Troy & Rose

Throughout the play we can see the marriage of Troy and Rose has not been perfect.

• Both sacrife their dreams
• Both worked hard to keep the relationship intact
• Both work hard to give their kids a better future

... But only one cheated and destroy the family

Parenthood

• Troy's father mistreated him and saw him as a work machine and a financial helper.
• A circle of bad parenting that Troy has followed

The relationship with his son

• Cory is affected by Troy's past
• Cory's dreams are crushed too

Society is to be blamed for this because it made Troy scared for the future of his son

Cory as the victim:

Results of Troy's mindset

• Just like his dad, Cory is an excellent player
• Troy is afraid he will end up like him
• Cory is not allowed to play in college
• Society's fault for traumatizing his dad
• Troy has passed over the mentality that there is no oppotunity for black people

Works Cited

Blumenthal, Anna S. 'More Stories than the Devil Got Sinners': Troy's Stories in

August Wilson's Fences. , 2006.

Letzler, David. "Walking Around the Fences: Troy Maxson and the Ideology of "Going

Down Swinging"." African American Review, vol. 47, no. 2/3, 2014, pp. 301-312.

Habeck, Joachim O., and Galina Belolyubskaya. "Fences, Private and Public Spaces, and

Traversability in a Siberian City." Cities, vol. 56, 2016, pp. 119-129.

JEFF RUBIO: Special to,the Register. "Effect of Prejudice is a Chief Concern in `Fences'

REVIEW: August Wilson's Deeply Moving Play Gets a Strong, Well-Acted Production in Long Beach." Orange County Register, Sep 16 1994, p. P13. ProQuest. Web. 20 Nov. 2018 .