Fences August Wilson Character Analysis

“Some people build fences to keep people out . . . and some people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you. (Wilson, 2.1.32)” The play Fences by August Wilson is set in Pittsburgh during the 1950s that details the story of a black man named Troy Maxson and his relationships with each individual in his family and his friends. Due to racial discrimination, Troy was unable to accomplish his dreams of being a professional baseball player and he uses this as a basis to why he heavily values his individual freedom as a man which tends to overstep his responsibilities to his family as a father and as a husband. Due to valuing and prioritizing himself, Troy destroys his relationship with his wife, is never able

Troy was unable to fully be there and be consistent as a father for Lyons as he spent a decent amount of Lyons’s childhood in prison for murder during an attempted robbery. Troy and Lyons appear to have an estranged relationship where Lyons occasionally asks his father for money when his payday arrives but their relationship never appears to be going in an upwards manner towards growth and reconnection. When Lyons visits Troy one afternoon on a payday, they get into a debacle where Lyons comments, “I know I got to eat. But I got to live too; I need something that gonna help me to get out of the bed in the morning: Make me feel like I belong in the world. I don’t bother nobody. I just stay with my music cause that’s the only way I can find to live in the world. Otherwise there ain’t no telling what I might do. Now I don’t come criticizing you and the way you live. I just come by to ask you for ten dollars. I don’t wanna hear all that about how I live.”. (Wilson, 1.1.340). Instead of having a “real” job, Lyons is a musician that plays in jazz clubs but Troy does not see his son’s career as an actual job. This tension is also representative as Troy’s first failure as a parent since he sees his son as a disappointment. Lyons is actually more enthralled with the idea and the lifestyle of being a musician rather than the actual profession. Lyons has the sense of

Troy’s own father never expressed love for his children; he rather expressed the opposite feelings by being violent with Troy and his siblings. This is why Troy, as a parent, is incapable of showing his children that he loves them as his father was not a good role model for showing Troy how to be a kind and loving father. Unfortunately, by having this part of their father/son relationship being unspoken leads Cory to question if his father even likes him. This infuriates Troy as he responds by saying, “Like you? I go out of here every morning. . . bust my butt . . . putting up with them crackers everyday . . . cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw. It‘s my job. It‘s my responsibility…You my flesh and blood. Not cause I like you! Cause I owe a responsibility to you! Cause it’s my duty to take care of you” (Wilson, 1.3.114). Troy believes that his duties as a parent are to support his family financially so that they can be clothed, fed, and housed. Aside from those basic needs, Troy does not see a need to do anything else such as showing his son that he loves him. Troy feels that he has sacrificed so much of his own life for his wife and children so they should not ask for anything else for him since he already does so much which is why he finds Cory’s comment so disrespectful. He treats his responsibility of taking care of his