Fences – Analysis Troy Maxson

1. Fences – Analysis Troy Maxson August Wilson (1945-2005)

2. Introduction • Fences opened in Broadway on March 26, 1987, and ran for 525 performances, a remarkable run for a drama. • In his New York Times review, Frank Rich wrote, “Fences leaves no doubt that Mr. Wilson is a major writer, combining a poet's ear for vernacular with a robust sense of humor (political and sexual), a sure instinct for crackling dramatic incident and a passionate commitment to a great subject.” • In the New York Post, Clive Barnes stated, “In many respects, Fences falls into the classic pattern of the American drama – a family play, with a tragically doomed American father locked in conflict with his son. Greek tragedy with a Yankee accent.” • Fences won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Drama Desk Award for Best New Play, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Best Play, and the Tony Award for Best Play.

3. Troy Maxson • Literally and figuratively, Troy is a large, powerful man. • As his wife Rose says, when he “walked through the house he was so big he filled it up,” but he didn’t always leave room for others. • Troy’s first name suggests the legendary city of Troy (from Homer’s Iliad) – and Fences is about the fall of Troy Maxson. • His surname, Maxson, is an amalgamation of Mason and Dixon, i.e., the Mason-Dixon line, which separated the slave states from the free states.

4. Troy Maxson • Troy was raised in the South, served a lengthy prison sentence, and lived subsequent years in the North. • Troy’s life has been filled with hope and disappointment. • He was an outstanding baseball player in prison, but his professional career was disappointing because of the color barrier in Major League Baseball. • He confronts his boss to become a driver of the garbage truck, but is disappointed with being separated from his friends behind the truck.

5. Troy and Self-Mythologizing • Much of Troy’s hope derives from his bolstering of himself and his low self-esteem through self-mythologizing. • He draws on the Bible to recreate himself as a man of mythical or Biblical proportions. • He tells of wrestling with Death, which recalls Jacob’s wrestling with an angel. • He fights off Death for three days and three nights; as a result, he has learned to “be ever vigilant.”

6. Troy and Self-Mythologizing • Troy wants to give himself grandeur, power, and a sense of immortality. • He wants those around him to admire him the way fans once admired him.

7. Troy and Responsibility • Troy’s values are rooted in his sense of responsibility. • He carries out his responsibilities diligently and he expects others to fulfill their responsibilities to him. • As he tells Cory, “Mr. Rand don’t give me my money come payday cause he likes me. He gives me cause he owe me.” • This emphasis on responsibility may work well for Troy in the workplace, but it fails him at home. • Responsibility displaces love as the most important family value for Troy. • Troy explains to Cory why he provides for him: • “… cause you my son. You my flesh and blood. Not ‘cause I like you! Cause it’s my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you! ... I ain’t got to like you.”

8. Troy and Responsibility • Troy’s sense of responsibility is shortsighted as it costs him an opportunity to get close to his son. • Troy’s emphasis on responsibility, which he defines in financial terms, allows for an extramarital affair.

9. Responsibility continued … • Although he loves his wife, he seems to feel little guilt over the affair. • He never apologizes to Rose. • He might feel justified because he turns over his paycheck to her and because Alberta offers him more laughter, joy, and veneration: • “I can sit up in her house and laugh … she firmed up my backbone,” but “I take my pay and give it to you. I don’t have no money but what you give me back. I just want to have a little time to myself … a little time to enjoy life.” • Troy may be fiscally responsible, but as a husband and father he is otherwise selfish, self-indulgent, hypocritical, and emotionally irresponsible.

10. Responsibility continued … • Troy may be fiscally responsible, but as a husband and father he is otherwise selfish, self-indulgent, hypocritical, and emotionally irresponsible.

11. Troy and Old Blue • Consider Troy’s song, “Old Blue.” • For Troy, “Old Blue” is about loyalty and the failure of human love. • Only Troy’s dog Blue was there to awaken him after his father’s brutal beating. • All of Troy’s human relationships – beginning with his mother’s abandonment of him – have failed Troy. • At the end, Cory and Raynell sing “Old Blue” to signal both their respect for and their forgiveness of their father.

12. Troy and Baseball • Troy uses baseball as a metaphor throughout the play. • Baseball not only gives his life direction, but it also gives him a vocabulary for self-expression. • Although Troy may be illiterate, his use of baseball imagery is at times poetic and always expressive. • He began life, he says, with two strikes against him, defines death as “nothing but a fastball on the outside corner,” and explains his affair as trying to steal second base after the frustration of standing on first base for so long.

13. Troy and Baseball • At that point, Rose is understandably frustrated by his baseball metaphors: • “We’re not talking about baseball! We’re talking about you going off to lay in bed with another woman.” • Troy responds, “Rose, you’re not listening to me. I’m trying the best I can to explain it to you.” • But Rose is insensitive to her husband’s only means of articulation. • Troy says he was born with “two strikes” against him.” What are those two strikes? Poverty? Being African American in a racist culture? Being abandoned by his mother and being raised by an abusive father?

14. Religion • There are several references to the Bible, Jesus, and Rose’s church, all of which point out the strong role of Christianity in the African-American community. • Troy is critical of Rose’s church and ministers. • Rose is active in her church and when she bakes for the cake sale, • Troy comments, “All them preachers looking for somebody to fatten their pockets.” • Troy is obsessed with economics, so much so that he cuts himself off from the possibility of spiritual fulfillment as offered by the church.

15. The Ending • The most important religious symbol is Gabriel, especially his actions that close the play. • The ending of Fences suggests that Wilson might not be pleased with those Christian churches who rely too completely on the white Christian tradition. • Gabriel, who thinks himself the Archangel Gabriel, blows on his trumpet, but he is unable to open the gates of heaven for Troy.

16. The Ending • His failure leads him to “a frightful realization,” and he begins “a dance of atavistic signature and ritual” that opens heaven’s gate. • Wilson might be suggesting that black churches, for spiritual wholeness, must consider their African roots in their rituals and spiritual experiences.

17. Title There are several “fences” to which the title can be said to allude: • The Fence Troy constructs in his backyard • slowly he builds a fence that he finishes after Alberta’s death. • This fence symbolizes Troy’s gradual alienation from his family, friends (Bono), and co-workers (as a driver he misses the camaraderie of those hauling the trash cans). • His treatment of his sons, for instance, has led in time to his alienation from them. • Baseball fences • over which Troy hit so many home runs, suggests the color barrier in baseball that made it impossible for Troy to fulfill his athletic and financial potential.

18. Title • Institutional restrictions • August Wilson said in an interview with David Savran in In Their Own Voices: • “At the end of Fences every person, with the exception of Raynell, is institutionalized. Rose is in a church. Lyons is in a penitentiary. Gabriel’s in a mental hospital and Cory’s in the marines. The only free person is the girl, Troy’s daughter, the hope for the future.” • Rose finds refuge from the world’s bleakness behind the “fence” of her faith: • “Jesus, be a fence around me every day.” • Fences constructed by white America • in a general sense, all the barriers and hardships imposed on black Americans are fences constructed by white Americans to keep blacks marginalized.

19. Theme - Race • Most of Fences is set in the 1950s. • There had been some progress made on race relations by this time, such as the integration of pro sports teams. • However, on a whole, America had a really long way to go. • Slavery has been gone from America for over seventy years, but its shadow still presses down on the country.

20. Theme - Race • All the characters in the play are African American, and they must deal with racism everyday. • The South is still officially segregated and much of the North is unofficially. • The play takes place before the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.  • Fences shows what it was like in the decade before the movement caused such radical change in America. • Some of the characters seem to sense that progress is in the air, while others are still trapped in America's troubled past.

21. Theme – Men & Masculinity • Fences is often thought of as a father-son play. • The main conflict centers around the tension between Troy and his son Cory. • The play shows how Troy in many ways repeats the mistakes of his own father while raising Cory. • By the end, we're left with the hope that Cory will be able to break the cycle.  • Fences also questions what it is to be a man. • Throughout the play we are forced to ask what it takes to be a good man. • Is it duty to your family? • Is it following your heart?

22. Theme - Mortality • Though there are only two actual deaths in Fences, mortality is a constant theme. • Troy begins by telling a story where he literally wrestled with Death and won. • There are several monologues throughout the play where he taunts Death, almost daring Him to try and take him again. • In the end, Death does take Troy, but we're left with the impression that Troy doesn't go down without a fight.  • Fences seems to view human mortality as both a dark inevitability and our ultimate chance for peace. • When the gates of heaven open for Troy at the end of the play, we're left with the impression that he's found rest in the afterlife.

23. Theme – Hopes, Dreams, Plans • Troy Maxson has had his dreams taken from him. • He wanted more than anything to be a pro baseball player, but his career was stopped because of racial discrimination. • The central conflict of Fences centers around Troy's refusal to let his son Cory play football, which destroys Cory's chances of going to college. • The damaged dreams of one generation can damage the dreams of the next. • By the end of the play, Cory must find a way to form new dreams out the ashes of the ones he's lost.

24. Theme - Family • Revolving around the trials and tribulations of the Maxson family, Fences is a family drama. • We watch Troy struggle to fulfill his role as father to his son and husband to his wife. • Troy doesn't do such a great job in either role • Before his death, his family has all but disintegrated due of his failures. • By the end of the play, we see that the family has also grown by his example.  • Fences depicts the complex dynamics that both tear families apart and hold them together.

25. Themes - Betrayal • Fences explores many different types of betrayal. • Troy Maxson manages to betray just about everyone in his life: • his son, his wife, his brother, and his best friend. • Pretty much every character in the play is betrayed by Troy in some way. • Though many of the characters are hurt by Troy's actions, the final scene shows that they also have respect for him. • Troy never betrayed them in his heart. • Troy never apologizes for anything he does in the play. • It could be that this is why the other characters respect him by the end. • Though all disappointed by the things he did, Troy always did what he thought was right.

26. Themes - Duty • Troy Maxson, the play's protagonist, seems to think that a father's only real duty is to provide food and shelter. • He doesn't think it's important for a father to show love to his son, • He doesn't feel his duties to his wife include fidelity. • Troy has an affair, but doesn't believe it's necessarily wrong. • He's provided for his wife and loves her, but his love now includes someone else. • Though Troy fulfills his own idea of his duties to his family, others may question this. • What does a father and husband owe his family? • What is he required to give?

27. Theme - Dissatisfaction • The play's protagonist, Troy Maxson, is dissatisfied with his life. • He's unhappy that his pro baseball dreams were stopped by racial discrimination. • He feels trapped and unfulfilled in his job as a garbage collector. • His son constantly disappoints him by not seeing the value of work. • And even though he loves his wife, Troy finds a new love in another woman's arms.  • Dissatisfaction can lead to behavior that destroys a person's life and the lives of those around them.