Troy's Misuse Of Power In Fences By August Wilson

Troy's lack of commitment to finishing the fence that Rose wants put up represents his lack of commitment in his marriage. He doesn't understand that Rose wants to keep the family close because he never truly had a close family. He becomes a womanless man. “From right now… this child got a mother. But you a womanless man” (79). Troy pushes Lyons away by refusing to hear him play his "Chinese music" (48). He also damages his relationship with his other son, Cory, by preventing him from playing football and rejecting his only chance to get recruited by a college football team. The “fence” also depicts that Troy is disowning Cory when they get into an argument and Troy kicks him out on to the streets. Troy states that Cory’s things will be on “the other side of that fence” (89). As a result, Troy ends up driving everybody away just like his father. The “fence” acts like a physical divider between the Maxson’s household and the outside world because Troy doesn’t bring anything others would normally have into his house and Rose does not want any outsider intruding her family.

A literary strategy often used by the greatest of writers to make their work feel more real to life is creating a morally ambiguous character. August Wilson is among those writers in how he portrays Troy in Fences. In the play, some ways August Wilson portrays Troy as a morally ambiguous character is through Troy’s treatment and care for his family. August Wilson also depicts Troy as a morally ambiguous character in the way of his interactions with Cory, how Troy holds Cory back from playing a sport that Cory really loves, yet he says that he wants the best for his family. Finally, August Wilson portrays Troy as a morally ambiguous character in how Troy always wants to be better than his father, but then he falls right back into the pattern his father set by not taking his family seriously. This moral ambiguity of Troy is significant to the play because it makes the reader connect more with the play and keeps the reader entertained by having such a static character. It also makes the work feel alive and fluid as the reader goes through the play, not knowing what to expect next from Troy.

August Wilson’s play, “Fences”, is a play about a father who is trying to make do to support his family as well as come to terms with his boisterous upbringing and the collapse of his Major League Baseball career. The Father, Troy Maxson, resents his son’s painless childhood and chances to pursue a college level football career. In multiple excerpts from the play, Troy brutally lectures his son Cory about life and adulthood. He uses short and incomplete sentences, rhetorical questions, repetition, connections from his past, and current examples to support his claim: life is not about being liked, but being treated with righteousness.

Troy makes himself appear to be more of a suave, debonair gentlemen to Rose by fabricating events from their past. Despite Troy’s attempts of romancing her, Rose knows better than to believe Troy’s mendacity. In Act One, scene one, Troy tells the story of how he met Rose. ”Baby, I don’t wanna marry, I just wanna be your man” (1333). Rose says, “Troy, you ought not talk like that. Troy ain’t doing nothing but telling a lie” (1333). Troy tries to make himself appear more engaging than he really is. Troy's lying makes him seem more gallant than he really is. He also talks about how he defeated Death. In Act One, scene one, Troy says to Rose and Bono, “I wrestled with Death for three days and three nights and I’m standing here to tell you about it” (1336). Every story Troy tells, he emphasizes the fact that he is such a stout and audacious man. Troy assumes that people actually believe his over embellished stories.

In Fences, August Wilson introduces an African American family whose life is based around a fence. In the dirt yard of the Maxson’s house, many relationships come to blossom and wither here. The main character, Troy Maxson, prevents anyone from intruding into his life by surrounding himself around a literal and metaphorical fence that affects his relationships with his wife, son, and mortality.

Troy tries to subject Rose to his misogynist mentality in his belief that Rose should answer his every demand. A part in the play that exemplifies this is when Troy calls upon Rose, when she doesn’t answer him as soon as he intends her to. He says, “You’re suppose to come when I call you woman!”(Wilson 1.4.21). Troys response to Rose not being there immediately during his time of need verifies his expectation of his wife being of service to him.

Rose does all she can to keep Troy in good situations and not let him make a fool of himself. “Troy what is wrong with you this

The members of the family that makes the most effort to keep the family level is Troy?s wife, Rose. The narrator tells us that Rose is a gentle woman. She cares a great deal for her family and her husband, despite the challenge of making her home a positive environment under the strains of a man with such impossible qualities. The author explains her reasons for enduring Troy by saying that ? her devotion to him stems from her recognition of the possibilities of her life without him: a succession of abusive men and their babies, a life of partying and running the streets, the Church, or aloneness with its attendant pain and frustration? (526; I, 1). In light of the fact that Troy is a good man and provides for their family in a way of his duty, Rose loves and supports him and ?either ignores or forgives his faults, only some of which she recognizes? (526; I, 1). Despite his love and respect for his wife, Troy acts extremely disrespectfully towards Rose. Due to the lack of love and respect that Troy was shown as a boy, he does not know feelings to his family. He talks down to his wife as if she were a child, while at the same time he declares his love for her to his friend, Bono. Troy?s fault, however, in declaring his love for his wife and family. He says, ?I love Rose? (555; II, 1), but when the time comes for him to show his love, he only disrespects her. When Rose asks Troy what he and Bono are talking about one

Troy's then made his life revolve around work and his family; he put his dreams of becoming a major league baseball player aside. He went into working and became a garbage man; he realized that he needed a steady income to provide for his family and to purchase the house that they live in. Even in the work place Troy wants to excel and make a stand for himself, talking to the commissioner about being a driver of one of the garbage trucks. Troy argued for blacks to drive the garbage trucks, but he doesn't know how to drive or even have a license. Troy acts out to try and better his black community and to try and break the barrier between whites and blacks. When Troy confronts Rose about his affair with Alberta, Rose becomes very angry with Troy. Rose is a stronger person than Troy, despite what she lets him think. She makes this extremely apparent when Troy tells her about the affair. "All of a sudden it's "we," where was "we" at when you was down there rolling around with some god forsaken woman? "We" should have come to an understanding before you started making a damn fool of yourself. You're a day late and a dollar short when it comes to an understanding with me." Troy realizes that the affair causes much disrespect to his wife and family. One day while visiting his wife Rose, they receive a call at the

life? These questions reside at the heart of Wilson’s play and illustrate the theme of Fences by

The first time I read August Wilson's Fences for english class, I was angry. I was angry at Troy Maxson, angry at him for having an affair, angry at him for denying his son, Cory, the opportunity for a football scholarship.I kept waiting for Troy to redeem himself in the end of the play, to change his mind about Cory, or to make up with Ruth somehow. I wanted to know why, and I didn't, couldn't understand. I had no intention of writing my research paper on this play, but as the semester continued, and I immersed myself in more literature, Fences was always in the back of my mind, and, more specifically, the character of Troy Maxson. What was Wilson trying to say with this piece? The more that

Family is not always the easiest thing to deal with as families always seem to get into disagreements. This is shown in the play “Fences” by August Wilson which is full of tension between the main character, Troy, and his various family members. Troy’s many bad decisions and mistakes cause a lot of hate to be directed at him and a lot of arguments ensue throughout the play. August Wilson uses many narrative elements in the play to make it more interesting and show the tension more clearly. Overall, in the play “Fences” August Wilson uses narrative elements such as father-son conflict, contrasting motifs, and characterization to show characters’ problems to create tension between characters.

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

I think it’s a perfect example of women in the 1950s because after the war, women still found themselves in traditional roles but were slowly breaking out of them. When the men returned from the war, many women wished to keep their jobs but instead became stay at home mothers who were expected to care for the children as well as cook and clean. Many ads and TV shows portrayed the perfect “wife and mother” that women in the 1950s were expected to be. Rose deals with Troy 's nonsense mostly because she feels she has too, and even after Troy cheated on her and had a baby by another woman she took care of the baby. An example of this is when Rose said “I told him if he was not the marrying kind, then move out the way so the marrying kind could find me.” This shows that Troy is unloyal, and Rose was always subject to his wild ways. Especially when Rose insisted on marrying him instead of

In the opening of the play, the main characters are developed to be very stereotypical archetypes. Troy is the money earning, hard-assed, head of the house and Rose is the gentle and caring mother. Through metaphors, Wilson can contradict these initial character developments and reveal the character 's true intentions. In the opening of the play, Troy 's character is “... fifty-three years old, a large man with thick, heavy hands; it is this largeness that he strives to fill out and make an accommodation with” (1.1.1). His appearance implies that Troy has an ego larger than himself and strives to fill up the missing space in every way possible, but is not showing his struggles. In a heated argument with Rose Troy says, “It’s not easy for me to admit that I been standing in the same place for eighteen years” (2.1.70). In other words, Troy is perceived to be a self-sufficient and progressive man, until now. He reveals his vulnerabilities and says that although he puts on a front of accomplishment, he has felt