Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s Fences is portrayed as an honorable man with a disastrous flaw that causes much devastation in his life and in his familys’ life as well. Troy’s ultimate downfall stems from his pride and self centeredness. Life for Troy has been a disappointment and his resentment for his failures makes him obstinate about the possibility of change of fate,if not for himself, for his sons. Troy is a man with two sons by the names of Cory and Lyons Maxson. Troy had Lyons before he went ot jail with another woman and had Cory with his current wife Rose .
When Cory received a scholarship to play football Troy immediately shut it down, he did it in a way to protect his son because he believed due to discrimination his son would never play football. But, because Troy is so stuck in the past and his own world he doesn’t even see that the world around him is changing. Troy is not a bad man, he may have a poor way of expressing how he feels and some of his actions are harsh but he possesses some honorable qualities. He accepts all responsibility of being the provider of his family and takes pride in it. Troy is funny and passionate and tells stories with so much animation and detail.
And underneath the hard exterior Troy has built around himself , he is a man who truly cares for his family but doesn’t know how to show it because no one cared about him in that way growing up. The worst part is that his family only discovered this after his death and after all the harm he caused that tore his family apart in the end. Everyone around Troy tries to tell him that times are changing and that Cory would have a better chance of attaining his sports dream than he would. His wife Rose says “They got lots of colored boys playing ball now. Baseball and football.” And his best friend Bono tries to get his point across by saying “Times have changed, Troy, you just come along too early.”
127 our experts are availableright now
Corey goes a step further by naming current baseball players in the major leagues but Troy still dismisses the idea and says to him , “The white man ain’t gonna let you get nowhere with that football noway.” Corey believes his father is trying to project his failures onto him and says, “You just scared I’m gonna be better than you, that’s all.” But Troy says to Rose , “I got sense enough not to let my boy get hurt playing no sports.” His own disappointment from his experience with sports combined with his determination to put an end to the discussion of Cory playing sports because he doesn’t want him hurt is what makes Troy a complex but tragic character.
The complex side of Troy comes from the admirable parts of his personality. Throughout the play it’s easy to feel anger, pity, and respect towards him. Even though he doesn’t express it well it shows that Troy cares for Cory and that he has good intentions for him. Troys’ way of showing love to his son can be traced back to the terrible relationship he had with his own father . He hated him , his father never showed he cared for him or that he loved him but still took care of him due to a sense of responsibility he had for him which molded Troy into the father that he is now.
In one scene Cory asks Troy “How come you ain’t never liked me?” and Troy responds with “like you? Who the hell said I gotta like you?…You are my responsibility” . The influence Troys’ father had on him is evident in this scene instead of reassuring his son that he loves him unconditionally he shows him tough love . Troy goes on to say ”Don’t you go through life worrying if someone likes you or not you better be making sure they are doing right by you”.
Even though he’s expressing it rather harshly , it’s still evident Troy cares for his son and wants to protect him and if he has to be the bad guy for that to happen he’s willing to be that. Troy goes to work everyday to put food on the table and pay bills but he still can’t show his family the love they want from him so badly. If Troy did not possess the few good qualities he does have to even out his bad qualities he would be seen as a cruel antagonist intentionally tearing his family apart. But because Troy is a tragic hero we can learn more from his experience as a black man with lost opportunities due to the color of his skin and we can learn from his failures instead of painting him as a cruel heartless man.
While Troy still does have admirable qualities his tragic ones outweigh when he has an affair with another woman ,Alberta,and gets her pregnant.He tries explaining to Rose he had the affair because he was stressed out and needed an escape but Rose finally fed up with Troy stands up for herself realizing that all the love she put into their relationship was a waste.Alberta has the baby but dies during childbirth and Troy is devastated by it .This only makes things worse between him and Rose because now he is asking her to raise a child that isn’t hers leading Rose to say “ you can’t visit the sins of the father upon the child this child got a mother, but you’re a womanless man.”
Rose found her strength again in the midst of conflict and forms a strong bond with the baby as well.Rose over the years gave her confidence up so Troy could have his and because of this situation she found it again.After Alberta dies Troy makes a deal with death. He says to it, “ Ain’t nobody else got nothing to do with this. This is between you and me. Man to man. You stay on the other side of that fence until you are ready for me.?” The fence becomes very symbolic in this scene. It shows Troy seems to have an insecurity with death and how he has to put up these imaginary fences up for a sense of protection.
It shows that this man who is known to be tough and aggressive who fears nothing in life, fears death. In the same way that fences are used to keep things inside or outside Troy keeps up his fences he was building to keep out his biggest fear which is death, his family, and his disappointments in life.Troy was dealt harder cards than what most people and it made him feel like only he could protect himself from thing s that could potentially hurt him.The fence that Rose had to practically beg Troy to build symbolized the fence that he puts up to protect himself from anything that could be harmful. Troy uses the fence to symbolize the separation and neglect he has towards his family.
The main reason why Troy kept putting building the fence off was because he neglected it just as he did his family and had his time focused on other things like his mistress. Troy’s tragic flaw becomes him in the end and ruins the life he spent 18 years making ; a fence to keep his family protected from all the harm of the world.Troy is seen as self centered, egotistical, and prideful but he still saw it as his responsibility to protect his family even if he had to protect them from himself .
Bono says” some people build fences to keep people out.. And other people build fences to keep people in”. Only after his death does his family come to this realization that there was deeper meaning behind his actions.Lyons says, “You got to take the crookeds with straights. That’s what Papa used to say.” When it came to Troy the crooked man was always trying to outweigh the straight and vice versa. His tragic flaw killed him but gave light to others giving him the title of a tragic hero.
Works Cited
Full Text of “August Wilson “Fences””, archive.org/stream/WilsonFences/Wilson Fences_djvu.txt. Wilson, August. Fences . Plume, 2016.
