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Fences: Life Of An Underprivileged African-American Family

1920 Words8 Pages

Aniya Giddings
Ms. Rios
Honors English II
March 2, 2023

Fences Analyzation

In 1957, the world was in a state of recovery from World War II and the Great Depression. People wanted to live a peaceful, satisfactory, average white-picket-fence life. However, the experience was immensely different for African-Americans due to the profound bigotry that polluted society at the time. August Wilson's "Fences" follows the life of an underprivileged African-American family in the 1950s. The main character, Troy, and his wife, Rose, have a relationship that quickly plummets as the story continues due to the circumstances they're given in life. Troy and Rose have an unhealthy and complex relationship that is poisoned by the historical context in which …show more content…

He had a strong passion and talent for baseball and aspired to play in Major League Baseball. Unfortunately, this was before Jackie Robinson's advancements in this field. Therefore, the world was less tolerant of black athletes in the Major Leagues. He expressed his bitter resentment towards his failure to achieve his dreams when he stated "Come telling me I come along too early. If you could play...then they ought to have let you play" (1.1.16). Life as a black man with a criminal record offered few opportunities, thus, he settled for his low-income blue-collar job. Troy was released from the penitentiary at 34 years old and remained in the same place until the play occurs when he is 53. During a heated conversation with Rose, he reveals his frustration with this by shouting, "If my brother didn't have that metal plate in his head ... I wouldn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. And I’m fifty-three years old. Now see if you can understand that!" (1.2.31). This depicts his feeling of emasculation, as well as his desperation to feel unburdened by this societal expectation and his failure to fulfill

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