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August Wilson Fences Literary Analysis

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August Wilson's play Fences addresses a great content of interpreting and inheriting history. Throughout Fences, much of the conflict emerge because the characters are at disparity with the way they see their foregoing and what they want to do with their forthcoming. Fences explores how the damaged aspirations of one generation can taint the dreams of the next generation on how they deal with the creation of their own identity when their role model is a full of dishonesty. Wilson illustrates his qualities primarily through his use of symbolism in the play Fences. In the play Fences by August Wilson, there are numerous symbols including baseball, Gabriel's trumpet, Raynell's garden, and countless others. One of the key textual symbols in the …show more content…

He persistently criticizes and neglects his two sons, which thus draws them away from him.Troy pushes Lyons away by refusing to hear him play his "Chinese music". He also scars hisrelationship with his other son, Cory, by preventing him from playing football and rejecting his onlychance to get recruited by a college football team. Also, Troy states that Cory's things will "be on theother side of that fence" when he kicks Cory to the street. Through this scene Troyacknowledges the fence as an actual, physical divide between him and his son. It additionallyconveys the emotional barrier that Troy puts between them. Furthermore, Troy ruins his marriageby cheating on his wife, Rose, by having an affair with another woman named Alberta. Howeverunlike Rose, who strives to build a fence around her family, Troy attempts to evade capture in thefence. He doesn't have the capacity to understand that Rose wants to keep the family close becausehe never truly had a close family. As a result, Troy ends up driving everybody away just like hisfather. He becomes a "woman less man". In addition, the fence appears to symbolize thedifference in personalities of Troy and Rose. It takes Bono to make Troy realize that "Rose wants tohold on to [him]", for Rose gives everything she has to Troy, including her entire life andlove. Yet, in contrast, Troy's in no rush to build any type of fence. He …show more content…

Eventually, Troy's association of the Devil as a omen of death comes to speak for his struggle to survive the course of his life. Many epilogue in the play end with Troy speaking a monologue to Death and the Devil. In Act One, Scene One, Troy spins a long yarn, or tale about his fight for several days with the Devil. The story of the Devil endears Troy to audiences early on by revealing his capability to imagine and believe in the absurd. In another story, Troy turns a white salesman into a Devil. Troy calls a man the Devil who tried to sell Troy furniture in exchange for monthly payments by mail. Again, providing the logical version of the story, Rose explains why Troy invents stories about the Devil. "Anything you don't understand, you call the Devil." Troy examines door-to-door salesmen and the process of layaway for the first time and in his dumbness, turns a present-day instance into a fabled

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