Themes of Fences
Critical Analysis of The Themes of Fences August Wilson
The Theme Of The Creation Of Order
The overarching theme of the play, alluded to in the title, is the idea of the creation of order - a fence is not a barrier in this reading, but a way to compartmentalize the world into understandable, manageable chunks. Troy Maxson is mainly responsible for this desire for order, though for a different reason his wife Rose also wants it. Troy is caught in a world in which he feels he does not belong. He carries with him the scars, oppression, and disorder of his Southern childhood, the abuse of his father, and an unwelcome Pittsburgh. On the other hand, he is also a part of the growing African-American middle class. He is promoted for a job he feels he does not deserve and he is unable to accept the idea that his children might have the freedom to create their own lives. For Troy, a fence is a way to demarcate off part of the world as his own territory - his desire for a fence is a desire to find his place in the time and culture of twentieth century America.
The Theme Of The American Dream
Troy Maxson embodies and represents an African-American generation, growing up in the post-World War II era, that finds itself finally able to realize the American ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Troy has become more successful than his father, who remained a poor sharecropper and never owned his own land or property but, instead, paid all his wages and his life to an unjust land owner. Troy has bought his own house (though he feels guilty about the methods of payment). And in his sexual relationships he embodied the freedom of a man to follow his own desires in pursuit of happiness. Troy Maxson embraces his desire to be an individual. This pursuit of the American Dream, however, is not without conflict. Troy cannot envision a generation doing more than his own accomplished. For him, it is doubtful that his son could achieve an even greater dream, and he cannot imagine a life unburdened by responsibility to family. In this way, Troy remains chained to his expectations of what a man can accomplish in the world.
Blackness and Race Relations Theme Analysis
Set in Pittsburgh in the 1950s, Fences explores the experience of one black family living in the era of segregation and a burgeoning black rights movement, exposing, at the heart of its characters’ psychology, a dynamic between the inner world of a black community and the expanse of white power around it. The fence which Troy gradually builds in front of his house serves as a symbol of segregation, as well as the general psychological need to build a fortress where a black ‘inside’ or interior can set itself off from the white-dominated world around it. From one angle, the fence represents the geographical effects of segregation in general: the fencing-off of blacks, the creation of ethnic insularity in certain neighborhoods, and it is a monument to this basic social division effected by white economic and political power. Yet Troy also builds the fence himself; it’s largely his own creation, though Rose initially tasks him with building it. Rose wants the fence in order to set her and her family off from the outside world, to protect a private interior of their experience—lived, black experience—from an outside world threatening to invade it, and from the divisive effects which white power inflicts upon society. While the latter divides with the aim of controlling and limiting black prosperity and influence, the division effected by Troy’s fence is one of protection and an affirmation of the world within it.
Throughout the play, we also see how its characters are forced to define their world in terms of how it’s limited by a racist system of white social and economic power. We see that Troy’s workplace, for instance, is organized according to a racial hierarchy privileging whites, since exclusively white men are hired to drive the company’s garbage trucks, while black men are only hired as garbage collectors. Further, much of the characters’ speech relies on pointing out their status as people of color in order to describe their position in relation to white power.
Wilson’s play therefore, in part, concerns itself with depicting how racism governs and structures the everyday lives of its characters, in order to expose—through the concrete experiences of one family—racism’s many effects on the black American community of the 1950s at large. The meaning behind and need for the fence, and the play’s exposure of a black world in many ways defined by its oppression, are a scathing condemnation of the division and pain inflicted by white power. Fences gives a palpable reality to the abstract mechanisms of racism and white power—it reveals the pain of, as well as the aspirations and opportunities withheld from, its black characters. Through framing pain as being at the heart of almost all its characters’ lives, Wilson reveals the psychological complexity and intensely tiresome and tasking nature of navigating a racist world divided principally between white and black. At the same time, he reveals how that division divides blacks themselves through the pain it inflicts upon them (such as Troy’s conflict with Cory over his desire to play football, since Troy’s parenting is informed by his past experience of discrimination in the world of sports).
The Theme Coming Of Age Within The Cycle Of Damaged Black Manhood
Troy and Bono share their childhood stories in the South and tales of their relationships with difficult fathers to Lyons in Act I, Scene Four. Their often-painful memories provide a context for understanding the similarities and differences of the generations separating Troy and Bono from Lyons and Cory. Troy's father, like many blacks after the abolishment of slavery was a failed sharecropper. Troy claims that his father was so evil that no woman stayed with him for very long, so Troy grew up mostly motherless. When Troy was fourteen, his father noticed that the mule Troy was supposedly taking care of had wandered off. Troy's father found him with a girl he had a crush on and severely beat him with leather reins. Troy thought his father was just angry at him for his disobedience, but proving Troy's father was even more despicable, his father then raped the girl. Troy was afraid of his father until that moment. At that moment, however, Troy believes he became a man. He could no longer live under the roof with man that would commit these unacceptable acts, so he left home to be on his own, though he was homeless and broke, with no ties or family elsewhere. Manhood, to Troy, meant separating from his father because of conflict and abuse. The one attribute Troy respected and proudly inherited was a sense of responsibility. Troy's father provided for eleven children, and Troy too became the sole breadwinner for his family Bono, however, remembers a different type of father. Bono's father was equally depressed about life as Troy's father, but unlike Troy's father, Bono's dad never provided a fathering or providing role to Bono and his family. Bono describes his father as having, "The Walking Blues," a condition that prevented his father from staying in one place for long and moving frequently from one woman to the next. Bono could barely recognize his father and knew little about him. Bono says his father, like many other African-Americans of his father's generation, was "searching out The New Land.” As blacks were freed from slavery and wanted to escape the often slavery-like conditions of sharecropping, many walked north in what history calls 'The Great Migration,' to pursue a better life in the North, particularly in urban centres. Because of Bono's father's urreliable personality, Bono chose not to father children, to insure he would not abandon a child like his father. But, contrary to Bono's fears, his father's personality was not a family trait, but a choice he made to cope with his particular circumstances. Bono has been loyal to his wife, Lucille for almost eighteen years. Lyons and Cory had very different upbringings, though their development into men does not fall too far from the tree of their father's experience. Lyons spent his entire childhood growing up with only one parent, his mother, while Troy was in jail. Lyons feels he has the right to make his own life decisions and pursue his own dreams in music because he had more familial support and fewer hardships than Troy. Troy was not around to mould him into a responsible person, so Lyons tends to need to borrow money, though he does pay Troy back respectfully. Cory ends up leaving home in a similar conflict with Troy, like Troy had with Cory's paternal grandfather. To Troy and Cory, becoming a man comes to mean leaving the man that raised you because of a violent conflict. This painful process of coming of age is confusing. For both Troy and Cory, the creation of their own identity when their role model is a creature of duality - part responsible and loyal, the other side, hurtful, selfish and abusive - proves a difficult model with which to mould their own identity as grown men with a more promising future than the father who threatens their livelihood.
The Theme of Interpreting and inheriting history
African-American difference
Fences makes a distinction between races and culture more than the monocultural ideal of sameness The Civil Rights era of the 1960s and 1970s can be broadly interpreted as African-Americans' struggle for the same rights as whites. By the 1980s, Wilson saw this struggle for equality transforming into a culture that was attempting to erase the differences between races and peoples. African-Americans according to Wilson, were different than whites or any other races. They have their own distinc culture, history, and society. No people should have to become part of the majority culture just to enjoy the majority's rights and privileges. Maintaining this difference is painful, and often destructive as Fences demonstrates. In his son Cory, Troy sees a generation that not only aspires for their own success in the world but also seeks to fold themselves into the white culture of the day. Sports is metaphor for this; while Troy is bitter at losing his chance to play in an integrated Major Leagues, hd still idealizes the Negro Leagues as symbol of African-American pride. When Cory seeks a college scholarship to play football, Troy fears that his son will lose the difference of his race in his drive for success. This conflict of difference ultimately, and perhaps necessarily, destroys their relationship.
The Theme Of Duty
In Fences, we have many instances of discussions on duty essentially involving the duty of a father to his family. Troy Maxson, the play's protagonist, seems to think that a father's only real duty is to provide food and shelter. He does not think it is important for a father to show love to his son, and he does not feel his duties to his wife include fidelity. Troy has an affair, but does not believe it is necessarily wrong He has provided for his wife and loves her, but his love now includes someone else. Though Troy fulfill his own idea of his duties to his family, his infidelity brings a major crack in his family life.
The Theme of Responsibility
Tory Maxon is a man who takes seriously his responsibility of his family Troy spend much of the first act talking about responsibility when it comes to responsibility troy lecture his children about grudgingly praises his otherwise abusive father for it, and insists he lives his life by it. Readers cannot help but admire how responsible Troy seems, at first. After all he takes care of his family, providing a home and giving all his pay to his wife. His inability to focus on anything but responsibility, however, strangles his relationship with his son. Rather than helping Cory achieve his own dreams, Troy insists his son follow the path he has chosen for him. His seriousness also becomes his greatest liability Troy is a man caught between his own desire for freedom, embodied in his affair with Alberta and his fathering of an illegitimate child, and his fierce sense of loyalty to his wife, children, and brother. Troy's sense of responsibility comes from his own father's bitter care for him and his siblings. His father's loyalty to his family can be seen as poisonous; his father's betrayal poisons his own relationship with Cory. Furthermore, Troy has not always lived up to his own high standards. He has a criminal past, and he uses his brother's disability to pay for his own benefit (and that of his family). He can feel alive and free only when engaged in an illicit affair. The pressure he places on himself and everyone around him to behave responsibly drives him to questionable acts. Ultimately, Troy becomes his own father. He abandons Rose for another woman and stubbornly refuses to repent of his sins. He also abandons his own brother and son, severing his relationships in his own quest for freedom. Troy demonstrates the idea that responsibility becomes as much a liability as a virtue.
The Theme of Manhood in modern America
Fences has been described as a story of manhood modern America. Troy Maxson is meant to represent the African-American experience of manhood, the contradictions and flaws inherent in this masculine process. There is first the question of the creation of the man; in Troy's experience, this is a fundamentally violent operation. It is meant to symbolize the birth of the self; Wilson portrays the African-American creation of self as a process of violence not different in the 1950s than it had been for eighteenth and nineteenth centuries slaves. The second stage of manhood is the continual way in which the African-American man is measured against the ideal of the American Dream, an ideal that becomes increasingly materialistic during the middle decades of the twentieth century and increasingly illusory as well. This is another way to read Cory and Troy's conversation regarding the TV in Act I Scene 3. Troy sees Cory accepting the idea that the accumulation of stuff creates desirable social status for the individual. Troy is deeply skeptical of this even though he implicitly understands it (he encourages Bono to buy his wife a refrigerator). The solution to these problems of manhood, according to Troy, is to accept the world's inherent violence and to barricade oneself against any materialistic thing that might inculcate passivity.
The Theme of Personal apocalypse
Gabriel, Troy's brother, is a symbol of the personal apocalypse of Troy Maxson. Apocalypse connotes a revelation, or an understanding of the world that brings about some kind of ending. In Fences, Troy's struggles with his family and with his sense of purpose reveal to him the nature of death and the impermanence of his own life. Gabriel, thinking that he is the literal angel Gabriel, foretells this revelation in Troy's life. He insists that Troy's life is written in St. Peter's book, though his mortality is not a concept of which Troy can conceive. The tragedies of Troy's life serve as a series of death events; the abandonment by his father, his own abandonment of his son, the death of his lover, and ultimately the end of his own life all remind Troy that he is not in control of his own life, even as he attempts tocontrol everyone around him.
The Theme of Changing African-American Culture
August Wilson's "Pittsburgh cycle” portrays African-American life in Pittsburgh during each decade of the twentieth century. Fences resonated with audiences partly because it so accurately capturedthe unique situation of African-Americans during the 1950s and 1960s. This was a time of great change for African-American culture. The Civil Rights Movement was in its nascent stages. African- Americans were slowly moving into a respectable middle class and out of the destitute poverty of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The post-World War II generation was first embracing the ideal of personal freedom. There are several instances of this changing culture in Fences. One is Troy's own advancement in his job. Troy is a garbage collector, a seemingly undesirable job, yet his promotion to truck driver bestows on him a level of authority and purpose that he feels he has otherwise not achieved in his life. His discomfort with his own advancement is seen in his desire to retire shortly after getting his raise. This changing culture also creates bitterness in Troy. This is seen in his love/ hate relationship with the game of baseball. On the one hand, Troy loves the game for the identity that it once gave him; on the other hand, he despises the game for its segregation and for robbing him of his chance at greatness. Troy is caught in the changing culture and represents a generation lost in their understanding of the world around them.
The Theme of Freedom versus protection
The fence in Fences serves as a symbol of conflicting desires. In one sense, Troy and Rose seek to build a fence to keep the world out of their lives. Rose's desire for a fence symbolizes the way in which she seeks to protect her family. She knows that Troy's checkered past is always there and that he is, perhaps, only moments away from making decisions that may forever affect her and her child. Rose's fence seeks to keep the family in and the dangerous world out. It is a symbol of protection. Though Troy seeks to protect his family and his way of life, the fence also becomes a symbol of discontent in his own life. In his confrontation with Rose, Troy exclaims that he has spent his whole life providing for the family. He has been the protector and defender of a quiet, normal life. The fence, therefore, does not protect Troy but instead keeps him from achieving his ultimate desire for individuality and self-actualization; freedom to do as his heart pleases.
The Theme of Mortality (Death)
One of the most important themes in Fences is death, which Troy fights for much of the play. Though there are only two actual deaths in Fences, mortality is a constant theme. It has a tremendous impact on the story. In the play, death is a character. Rather than the elusive unknown, death becomes an object that Troy attempts to battle. Throughout the play, death takes on a persona of its own. Wilson gives life and body to death through Troy's lines: "Troy: The middle of July, 1941! It got real cold just like it be winter. It seem like Death himself reached out and touched me on the shoulder. I got cold as ice and Death standing there grinning at me. Rose: Troy was right down there in Mercy Hospital. You remember he had pneumonia? Laying there with a fever talking plumb out of his head." (Act I, Sc. 1, p. 14) For Troy, death is nothing but “A fastball on the outside corner” (p. 13). Troy goes on telling how he had wrestled with death for three days and nights, at which Troy had beaten Death, and Death walked away. Later on, death makes an appearance in Troy's life taking away someone he loved:
Rose: Alberta died having the baby.
Troy: Died... you say she's dead? Alberta died?
Rose: They say they done all they could. They couldn't do nothing for her. (p.79).
Troy's mistress, Alberta, had died as she gave birth to her and Troy's daughter, Raynell. At this point, Troy begins building his fence saying how death will stay outside of the fence until he is ready for Troy, and Troy alone. After his argument with Cory, Troy feels invigorated, and urges death onward saying that he's ready. "The time is 1965. The lights come up in the yard. It is the morning of Troy's funeral." (p. 93) Troy is dead, death had taken him away one sunny afternoon. "He was out here swinging that bat. I was just ready to go back in the house. He swung that bat and just fell over with a grin on his face. They carried him down to the hospital, but I knew there wasn't no need" (pp. 97-8). Troy had urged death on and it had taken him on again and this time it won out. Troy was no more. It is however instructive to note that the unfinished fence that Troy is building around his home is completed only when Troy feels threatened by death. In the story narrated above, Troy relates how he once wrestled with death and won. When the simmering conflict between Troy and Cory finally erupts and the boy leaves his father's house for good, it is death that Troy calls upon to do battle. In the end, Death does take Troy, but we're left with the impression that Troy does not go down without a fight. Interestingly too in the last scene, it is death that unites the family and helps bring resolution to their lives. When the family meets again at Troy's funeral, they are finally given a chance to bury the pain and disappointments of their lives. 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 are left with the impression that he has found rest in the afterlife.
The Theme of Impact of time flow on history
Normal occurrences of one time might change in the future. This is a huge aspect of this play. Troy's son, Cory, wants to play football. However, Troy will not let his son play:
Troy: The white man ain't gonna let him get far with that football.
Rose: Times have changed since you was playing baseball, Troy. That was before the war. Time has changed a lot since then.
Troy: How in the hell they done changed?
Rose: They got lots of colored boys playing ball now. Baseball and football.
Bono: You right about that, Rose. Times have changed, Troy. You just come along too early. (p. 12) When Troy was playing baseball he seemed horribly distraught that he could not play in the major leagues. He claims that it is entirely the fault of whites and their not letting coloured people play.
Rose: Troy why don't you admit that you was too old to play in the major leagues.
Troy: What do you mean too old? Don't come telling me I was too old. I just wasn't the right color.
Rose: How was you gonna play ball when you were over 40. Sometimes I can't go no sense out of you. (p. 42).
The premise of him not being able to play was more likely because of this, he just cannot admit it, Troy just does not want the same thing to happen to Cory. Instead, he wants Cory to get a job and do good in life. However, the constant fighting between the two has convinced Cory that this is not the case. “Just because you didn't have a chance! You just scared I'm gonna be better than you, that's all.” (p. 61).
The Theme of The wish of good fortune on others
Troy wishes a better life for his children. He does not want his kids to live the same life he has. He wants them to have successful futures. Rose: Why don't you let the boy go ahead and play football, Troy? Ain't no harm in that He's just trying to be like you with the sports.
Troy: I don't want him to be like me! I want him to move as far away from my life as he can get. You the only decent thing that ever happened to me. i wish him that. But I don't wish him a thing else from my life. I decided 17 years ago that boy wasn't getting involved in no sports. Not after what they did to me in the sports." (p. 42). He didn't want Cory playing sports and then failing or not even getting to play. Instead, Troy wanted Cory to get a job, go to college, and live a successful life:
Rose: Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn't...and at the same time he tried to make you everything he was. I don't know if he was right or wrong...but I do know that he meant to do more good than he meant to do harm. (p. 100) Troy hoped that his children would be strong and determined like he was, yet never have to live the same life, or have most of the same horrible experiences that he had. Troy only wished good fortune on them, hoping that they could lead a life better than his own.
The Theme of 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. In some way, almost every character in the play is betrayed by Troy. Of course, the play does go deeper than that. Troy betrayed his wife, Rose, and his brother, Gabe. Troy betrays Rose and their marriage. Troy continually goes down to his mistress, Alberta. When Rose finds out, she is angry and sad. She felt betrayed, she had given him her life, her entire being, and he used her. He was in love with another woman. Bono confronts him about this and Troy responds with, “You saying I don't measure up. I don't measure up 'cause I'm seeing this other gal" (p. 66). He was seeing another woman, and not only that, but, they also had a baby together. Rose had been waiting for eighteen years to hear that he was going to be a daddy again, yet she wanted to be the mother. Rose was betrayed by Troy, yet Rose was not the only one betrayed. Gabe was also betrayed by Troy. For a majority of the play Troy stands up for Gabe and his insanity. He says how Gabe shouldn't be locked up. How Gabe got that way through fighting for the country. Later on he even pays Gabe's bail, for his alleged disturbing of the peace. However, Troy is a huge hypocrite. When things get bad what does Troy do, he betrays Gabe.
Well you ought to know. They went over to Miss Pearl's and got Gabe today. She said you told them to go ahead and lock him up. Say the government send part of his check to the hospital and the other part to you. You did Gabe just like you did Cory. You wouldn't sign the paper for Cory (to play football)... but you signed for Gabe. You signed that paper. said send him to the hospital...you said let him be free...now you done went down there andsigned him to the hospital for half his money. You went back on yourself, Troy. You gonna have to answer for that. (p. 77) Troy went back on himself and practically took half of Gabe's money. Troy is full of betrayals. He betrayed his own flesh and blood, along with his wife. Though many of the characters are hurt by Troy's actions, the final scene shows that they also have respect for him. Perhaps they see that, in some ways,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 they were all disappointed by the things he did, Troy always did what he thought was right. It could be said that Troy never once betrayed himself . It should be recalled however that even Troy's father betrayed his son by raping his girlfriend after admonishing him for spending time with the same girl.
The Theme of Life, love, family, parenting and black identity
Fences projects universal messages about life, love, family, parenting and black identity. It shows the hardship of life in a common African-American family set in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and the margins of society. It carries a universal message about a disappointed father, who wants to protect his teenage son from life disappointments. Haunted by his inner demons, Troy Maxon fails to show real love, instead we see his harsh personality towards his son and his wife. Too many disappointments in the past have led him to shut off his emotions towards his family but still remaining human and adopting his extramarital child, Raynell. The play depicts a society put on the social margins, fighting everyday issues and marital problems but giving us a ray of hope about complex family relations and a young generation respecting their parents.
The Theme of Fair play
The idea of fair play is a recurring theme in Fences. Troy was born into an unfair world, but by the time the play ends, things are improving. The play is set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1957, squarely in the midst of the civil rights movement. Many date the beginning of the civil rights period to 1954, when the Supreme Court struck down "separate but equal" in Brown v. Board of Education. Dr Martin Luther King Jr led the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. The boycott ultimately led to the desegregation of buses in Montgomery and much of the South. In 1957, when Fences is set, the "Little Rock Nine," a group of nine African- American students, began attending a previously all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The play ends in 1965, which coincides with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Through these years and beyond the civil rights movement strove to establish fair play for all Americans, not just for whites. Troy experiences fair play for the first time playing baseball in prison. While serving his 15-year sentence, Troy developed a major league-level baseball talent. By the time he got out, however, he was entering middle age. Around this time Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in the major lea zues. In Troy's mind Jackie Robinson is a lesser talent; the fact that he succeeded while he failed leaves him angry and embittered. Troy believes sports should value only ability. Baseball did not follow the rule of fair play, and this betrayal shakes Troy to his core and affects his views on life. His wife, however, repeatedly points out that Troy was simply too old for the major leagues by the time he was a free man. Troy continues to fight for fair play, however. At work, he fights a system that lets only white men drive the trucks, and he wins. But his deep-seated distrust of organized sports endures, and he refuses to let his son pursue a football scholarship. In a sense he denies his son the benefit of fair play by not letting him use his football talent to better himself.
The Theme of Dissatisfaction
Dissatisfaction causes lots of trouble in Fences. 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. Fences explores how dissatisfaction can lead to behaviour that destroys a person's life and the lives of those around them.
The Theme of Suppression
A pattern of suppression, passed down from one generation to the next, manifests itself in Maxson's family. Troy's father suppressed his attempt to have fun with a girlfriend, so Troy escapes, lands in prison, and plays baseball. Although he feels let down by sports, believing his skin colour kept him out of the major leagues, he, in turn, suppresses his son's dream of using sports to get an education and a leg up in society. Troy believes he is doing Cory a favour and giving him a brighter future. After all, his son will not suffer the same heartbreak he did. But Troy cannot see the world is changing; African-Americans have better opportunities. Cory's best chance at success is to go to college. A football scholarship would provide a college education. This education would allow him to scale heights beyond what Troy has achieved. Troy suppresses Cory's dream through his own limitations.
The choice between pragmatism and illusions as survival mechanisms
Troy and Rose choose divergent coping methods to survive their stagnant lives. Their choices directly correspond to the opposite perspectives from which they perceive their mutual world. In Act II, Scene Troy and Rose say that they both feel as if they have been stuck in the same place since their relationship began eighteen years ago. However, Rose and Troy handle their frustration and disappointment with their intertwined lives differently. This difference in their viewpoints is evident earlier on in the play. In Act I, Scene I, Troy proves through his story about his battle with Death that he is a dreamer and a believer in self-created illusions. To Troy, his struggle with Death was an actual wrestling match with a physical being. Rose, on the other hand, swiftly attempts to bring Troy back to reality, explaining that Troy's story is based on an episode of pneumonia he had in July, 1941. Troy ignores Rose's pragmatic, realistic perception of his fight with death. Troy brags about his wrestling match with Death. Rose unsuccessfully refutes his story by mentioning that every time he tells the story he changes the detail Troy is unmoved by Rose's evidence against his illusion. Rose, as pacifier of the Maxson family, relents, making a final comment, "Troy, don't nobody wanna be hearing all that stuff." Later, when Troyan weaves a story about encountering the devil, Rose buttons his long account with two simple words, the "Troy lying."
The one impractical activity Rose takes part in is playing lottery (numbers). She has dreams and one hopes for the future, like Lyons who also plays the lottery and wants to be successful in a difficult profession, jazz music. In Act I, Scene 2, "Troy says to Rose, “You ain't doing nothing but throwing your money away." And when Cory proposes that they buy a television in Act I, Scene 3, Troy makes an excuse that they need to spend the money on a new roof. When it comes to other characters' impractical decisions, Troy suddenly becomes a realist, selfishly reserving the right to dream for himself only. This response comes across hypocritically from a man who later, in the same scene, will refuse to admit Hank Aaron gets enough playing time or when Cory proves a point about Sandy Koufax, Troy's futile response is, “I ain't thinking of no Sandy Koufax," as if not thinking about him will make Koufax non- existent. Later, in Act II, Scene I, Troy admits his affair with Alberta to Rose, excusing his behaviour by expressing to Rose that spending time with Alberta allowed him to provide an illusion of accomplishment and escape from responsibility. Troy says, “Then when I saw that gal... I got to thinking that if I tried...I just might be able to steal second." Troy perceives his relationship with Alberta as a laudable move in a baseball game, as a personal accomplishment, Rose sees Troy's lies and deception about the affair as simple and straightforward self-absorbed betrayal. She says, "We're not talking about baseball! We're talking about you going off to lay in bed with another woman... [w]e ain't talking about no baseball." In the final scene, Rose copes with the death of Troy with her typically pragmatic view. "...I do know he meant to do more good than harm." Troy dies, swinging a baseball bat, still attached to unfulfilled dreams of his past while Rose serves as peacemaker and practitioner of love with her family as they grapple with Troy's confrontational legacy.
The Theme of 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 the 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. All the characters in the play are African-American, and they must deal with racism every day. The South is still officially segregated and much of the North is unofficially. Keep in mind that 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.
The Theme of Men and masculinity
Fences is often thought of as a father-son play. The main conflict centres around the tension between Troy Maxson and his son Cory. The play shows how Troy in many ways repeats the mistakes of his i 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?
The Theme of Dreams, hopes, plans
Troy Maxson, the protagonist of Fences, has had his dreams taken from him. He wanted more than anything to be a professional baseball player, but his career was stopped because of racial discrimination. The central conflict of Fences centres around Troy's refusal to let his son Cory play football, which destroys Cory's chances of going to college. In this way, Ferices explores how 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 of the ashes of the ones he has lost.
The Theme of Family
Revolving around the trials and tribulations of the Maxson family, Fences is a great example of a family drama. We watch Troy struggle to fulfil his role as father to his son and husband to his wife. You could say that Troy does not do such a great job in either role; before his death, his family has all but disintegrated due to his failures. However, 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
The Theme of Fences
Fences themselves are a major theme, as the title indicates. Rose imagines the fence around the house as a way to keep the family safe. But Troy imagines it as a way to fence in the ambitions of Cory, his son, It seems like the fence becomes a symbol here of the difference between Rose and Troy's personalities, Because of his combative nature, Troy assumes the fence is meant to keep something out. It takes Bono to make Troy see that a fence can have the opposite effect. It's possible that Rose asked Troy and Cory to build the fence as an attempt to help the two to bond. She feels the distance growing between them and is trying to keep her family together. Rose may instinctually feel that her family is disintegrating, and the fence is her way of trying to symbolically hold it together. Lastly, the fence could be seen as symbolizing all the barriers that our protagonist, Troy, has had to face in his life. First, it was his cruel and abusive father. Then it was poverty and homelessness. Next it was the racism that kept him from the professional baseball career that he rightly deserved. The tragedy of the play is that Troy lets his history of being confronted with barriers separate him from his friends and family. In the end, though, the biggest fence of all opens for Troy. This occurs in the play's final moments, when Gabriel dances a dance that opens the gates of heaven itself. We are left with the feeling that somewhere out there Troy may just have found forgiveness and peace.
The Theme OF Deception
Outside of the self-deception that Rose claims Troy commits against himself, there are a number of significant deceptions in the play. Cory lies to Troy about quitting the football team (and keeping his job). When Troy demands that Cory choose the job over the football team, Cory outwardly agrees but secretly stays on the football team and quits his job. Troy discovers this deception. When Cory quits his job to concentrate on football, his father retaliates by going to the coach and forbidding Cory to play. Another significant deception is in Troy's relationship with his mistress. He lies to Bono early in the play about the nature of this relationship and hides it from his wife as well. His affair with Alberta represents his attempt to escape the responsibility he feels for wife, son, and home. Troy also implicitly lies about his qualifications for the position of driver at his job. Deceit, it would seem, is a common mode in the play, yet most of the characters strive to be honest and direct with one another. This is true of Cory, Rose and Bono.