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Fences

1)         August Wilson develops the idea of Troy’s life as a baseball game by using symbols and metaphors from Baseball.  Baseball has been highly symbolic of working-class America throughout the 20^th Century.  Some specific examples that Wilson uses in Troy’s life are death, “striking out,” and racial prejudices.

            First, Troy compares death with a fastball by simply stating, “Death ain’t nothing but a fastball on the outside corner.”  He then goes on to say that if he is able to hit one for a home run (which he surely can), he can knock off death the same way he hits baseballs out of the ballpark.  Troy is not afraid of death and views it as a game in which he is infallible.

 Toward the end of the play, Wilson uses Baseball’s “strikes” as a way of describing the conflict between troy and his son Cory.  He gets three “strikes” from his father, therefore striking out and kicked out of his house.

Finally, white people have played the game of baseball for its first 90 years of existence. At the play’s present time, set in the 1950s, the racial barrier was slowly breaking down with the inception of baseball’s first black player, Jackie Robinson.  Troy’s life and job represented this change, as evident in his job where the black workers are the ones who ride behind the garbage truck, while the white workers drive it.  After going down to the commissioner’s office to complain, he finally gets to be a driver.  But when discussing baseball and football with his best friend Bono, Troy states, “The white man ain’t gonna let him get nowhere with that football.”  His wife however, replies, “They got a lot of colored baseball players now.  Jackie Robinson was the first.”  Baseball, because it is analogous to Troy’s life, is used to show that racial barriers were slowly breaking down since there are now colored baseball players, and Troy gets to drive the garbage truck.

            In contrast to breaking barriers, colored men are still being given fewer opportunities in life.  Troy tells his son Cory when discussing baseball, “….The colored guy needs to be twice as good before he get on the team.” As for his son playing football, Troy tells his wife, “I got sense enough not to let my boy get hurt over playing no sports.”

Baseball as whole is used to help the reader to connect with Troy and his family.  Since readers of all races have or are going to read the play, trouble understanding the play can occur.  Thus, a common ground, baseball, is used as a metaphor of Troy’s life to help substantiate the play.

2)         In Fences, details of the black experience are used extensively to substantiate Troy’s family and friends as Black-Americans in the 1950s.  There are references to the segregation in sports and in the job market.

            Since Troy’s life is analogous to a baseball game, his and his son’s life are affected by sports.  Troy grew up wanting to become a baseball player, but realized that blacks could never play in the major leagues.  He tells Bono, “What it ever get me? Ain’t got a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of,” which indicates his hurt from not being able to play.  Troy later forbids Cory to play football, telling him, “The white man ain’t gonna let him get nowhere with that football.”

            Also dealing with the black experience was the cruel reality that the job markets were not fair or equal.  In Troy’s job as a garbage man, the inequality can be justified by his statement, “Why you got the white mens driving and the colored lifting?”  In 1957, which is the setting of the play, segregation and inequality existed throughout the nation, summing up the black experience.  Blacks and minorities were given unfair treatment and were never given the same opportunities in sports and in there own jobs. 

4)            Through most of the play, Fences, Troy is in control of his life.  However, he begins to lose control of his life when e is forced to tell Rose that his mistress is having a baby.  And when his mistress dies, Troy is forced to ask Rose to help take care of the baby.  Rose agrees, but coldly replies, “From right now…this child got a mother.  But you a womanless man.”  For years Rose has put all her life into Troy as evident when she tells him, “I gave 18 years of my life to stand in the same pot with you,” but she no longer cares for Troy after what he has done to her.  Troy cannot control her feelings for him anymore.  Furthermore, Troy cannot control his son Cory anymore.  At the end of scene 4, Cory and Troy fight.  Troy realizes that he cannot control even his own son, specifically when he says, “All of a sudden you done got so grown that your daddy don’t count around here no more.”  Cory and Rose are his family and an extension of Troy’s life.  Since he cannot control any of the two, he begins to lose control of what he once held firmly - his life.

5)            According to Wilson, sons are always doomed to repeat their fathers’ lives.  However, that is not always the case. Starting with Bono, he tells Troy about his dad as in, “See a fellow moving around form place to place…woman to woman…called it searching for the new Land.”  Later, Bono remarks, “As it turned out I been hooked up with Lucille for near as long as your daddy been with rose (about 17 years).”  Even though his dad may have been a womanizer or at least unstable in terms of relationships, Bono is just the opposite of his dad.  He is faithful and has been married to his wife for a long time.  Troy on the other hand, repeats his dad’s life.  His dad as described by Troy as in, “How he gonna leave with 11 kids?..he felt a responsibility toward us.”  Troy’s dad had illegitimate children, just like Troy himself, and the both them had a sense of responsibility to look after their kids.  Following in Troy’s footsteps, Lyon also stole to survive.  He tells Cory at the end, “That’s what papa used to say….You got to take the crookeds with the straights.”  Lyon ends up as a common thief like his father and even spends time in jail, just like his father. 

            The relationship between the fathers and sons effects how the son grows up.  The cycle of abuse is evident in the way Troy’s father treated him, and the way Troy treated Cory.  Both were kicked out of the house when they were young. Lyon ended up like Troy too in that he became a crook and spent time in jail.  The only one who did not end up following in his father’s footsteps is Bono.

7)         The end of the play contains both optimistic and pessimistic moods.  First, there is a feeling of pessimism when Cory brings up the subject about Gabe in, “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,” which indicates Troy’s betrayal of Gabe in putting him in a mental institution.  The next scene, which is also the last, starts with the death of Troy.  Even with his death, there is a feeling of optimism as Cory returns home from the marines.  Lyons mentions that he hears Cory is getting married and Cory replies, “Yeah, I done found the right one, Lyons.  It’s about time.”  With Troy gone, his emotional fence that has held back Cory for so long has now ended.  Cory initially refuses to attend his father’s funeral but later agrees to after he sees Gabe.  Gabe then ends the play on an upbeat note when he plays the trumpet and tells Troy, “I’m gonna tell St. Peter to open the gates.  You get ready now.”  Even though the proceeding scene has a pessimistic tone with the fight between Troy and Cory, the play ends with an optimistic tone with Cory facing a world with endless opportunities.