Fate and destiny seem to be intertwined and many people wonder if it is in their control; the answer to that question is yes. You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct, and control your environment. You can make your life what you want it to be. The destinies of blacks living in America, however, took a long time and a lot of effort in order to change. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the civil rights movement – a struggle for African Americans to achieve rights equal to those of whites including equal opportunity in employment, housing, and education, as well as rights to vote- helped change their destinies. August Wilson, a well-known playwright during this time period, was famous for his plays such as Fences and The Piano Lesson. His plays are based off of his own experiences and explore a century’s worth of African American struggle and triumph. One of his plays, Fences, is about four generations of black Americans and how they have passed on a legacy of morals, mores, attitude, responsibility, and patterns. He also talks about racial segregation that creates social and economic gaps in society and explores the idea of whether or not you can be the master of your own destiny. According to August Wilson, blacks living …show more content…
Their history had been filled with hardships and it was during the Civil Rights Movement that they finally got the results that they have worked hard towards. Fences is an example of how the African Americans were living in during that time period and although the story is not exactly the same for everyone, it gives a sense of what their life was like. If you grew up with two strikes against you, it is harder for you to change your fate. However, to the extent that someone works hard, it is possible to change your fate. Your destiny then becomes the legacy that you leave
From this, the lives of African Americans proved to be much stronger than what was credited for. Great criticism had yet to come from and the thrive of such influential people was beginning to be acknowledged. Barriers have now been broken and the race for equality has begun. With the foundation of a newly
African Americans face a struggle with racism which has been present in our country before the Civil War began in 1861. America still faces racism today however, around the 1920’s the daily life of an African American slowly began to improve. Thus, this time period was known by many, as the “Negro Fad” (O’Neill). The quality of life and freedom of African Americans that lived in the United States was constantly evolving and never completely considered ‘equal’. From being enslaved, to fighting for their freedom, African Americans were greatly changing the status quo and beginning to make their mark in the United States.
Years before we started our constitution with “we the people…;” years before we distinguished society to be separated into colors -- black, white or somewhere in between; years before we pledged together to be “...one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all…,” we lived under the British rule. However, with the sacrifices of many men who made history come to life, we gained our freedom. Soon our America turned into my America -- my as in the “white” America. The cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance approached later on in the early twentieth century, where vibrancies of new perceptions emerged in the minds of many African Americans. However, this white America proved to be an obstacle, taking away the freedom and excitement that the African Americans felt after years of oppression.
Fences is written using African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Fences made in 1957, the era when there are many talented Black athletes emerged. However, in fences story, at that time, Negro leagues players do not get adequate salaries to support their family. They still face racism at that time. August Wilson wrote this play because he wanted to show his family racial as he experienced while he was a kid.
August Wilson faces a lot of difficulties in his life. He begins writing Fences in the twentieth century, and he portrays the African American experience between the 1900s to 2000 (Wilson 11). In Fence August Wilson tells the story of a father, Troy Maxson’s lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Troy was a very talented baseball perspective with hopes to play in the major leagues. Maxson’s had the bad luck of having to grow up when racism was the biggest part of America.
The play, Fences by August Wilson, is about Troy Maxson and his struggling family relationships. A recurring idea throughout the story is the construction of a fence around Troy's home. Troy's fence could symbolize two things, Troy is trying to protect his family from the outside world, or Troy is isolating himself from his own family. As the construction of the fence progresses, the more severely damaged Troy's relationships become. In this play, the underlying message is that, despite the fact that fences can both protect and isolate, Troy’s fence isolates him from his family rather than to protect his family.
In 1945, 2% of major leagues consisted of blacks and in 1995, 19% of major leagues consisted of blacks. The very first black person to play major league baseball was Jackie Robinson in 1947. By the 1970’s, a little less than a quarter of major league baseball players were black. Today, major league sports teams are much different than before, many teams consist of the minority being white people and the majority being other races. Segregation has changed immensely over time, in the past 5 decades blacks went from having no basic human rights to being recognized as equal beings and it shows through sports as well as many other areas of segregation such as the lack of opportunity and safety, segregation in schools, and discrimination in public
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 Fences by August Wilson, Gabriel is presented as a veteran from World War II who was injured and receives disability money is taken from him because of his brother. That doesn’t give Gabriel any justice because of white superiority that controls the life of blacks. This play by Wilson takes place in the 1950s a time period where blacks started the period of better advancements for black veterans with disabilities. Veterans with disabilities or any person with a disability is no treated the same. Gabriel is treated as a fool who has no real purpose anymore because he is not the same so Troy and the world look and treat them differently.
The revolutionary Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr, once described discrimination as “a hellbound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.” His point being that African Americans face racial discrimination on a daily basis. Brent Staples, being an African American living in America, expresses his view on the subject in his essay “Just Walk on By”, where he conveys the message of how fear is influenced by society's stereotypical and discriminating views of certain groups of people; his point is made clear through his sympathetic persona, descriptive diction, depressing tone, and many analogies. Staples sympathetic persona helps the reader feel and understand the racial problems that he experiences daily.
Some people go the extra mile in insulting, attacking or mentally attacking others because of racist ideals they believe in. In the play Fences by August Wilson, Troy's dreams of
Fences is a play written by the playwright August Wilson, who dedicated himself to writing plays capturing what it was like to be an African American in the United States during every decade of the 20th century. Fences was a play that was specifically written to provide an outlook into the lives of African Americans in America during the 1950s, during the process of demarginalization. Each character of the novel provides a unique perspective to capture different aspects of the “African American Experience” during this time period. In Fences, it was very important to August Wilson to truly capture “The African American Experience” and he was able to do so through the portrayal of the Maxson family, with his representation of African Americans during the 1950s in Fences, and with the multiple perspectives of African Americans captured
In summary, the play “Fences “setting was set during the 1950’s in Pittsburg, where many African Americans were fighting for their rights. Many of the minority population were getting treated poorly and unfairly. Troy Maxson, his wife and son lived off a small alley in a big-city. The main character Troy was a sanitation worker and former Negro League baseball player.
When reading the play “Fences” by August Wilson, one may say that it is a tragedy, and that the protagonist, Troy Maxson, has tragic flaws that leads him through a path of false judgement. Troy is seen as a stubborn man and wants everything to go his way or the highway. However, in actuality, he is not a bad guy, Troy is just a father who wants to keep his family out of harm’s way. This led me to three journalists with similar judgments of Troy Maxson.
In August Wilson’s playwright Fences, the narrator portrays racism in a social system, in the workplace, and in sports, which ultimately affects Troy’s aspirations. Troy Maxson is constantly facing the racism that is engraved into the rules of racial hierarchy –– fair and unfair, spoken and unspoken. Troy suffers many years of racism when he plays in the Negro major Baseball League; therefore he decides to protect Cory from ever experiencing those blockades in his drive for success. In the end, although Troy is always driving to obtain agency, Troy always succumbs to the rules of racism because those racist ideologies are too hard to overcome. Throughout the play, Troy is perpetually confronting the racist social system that displays unspoken