Fences Symbolism Essay
Most titles are significant to the story it is portraying. This is the case in the play Fences by August Wilson. The title of this play has both a symbolic and literal interpretation to the play. The character that shows this interpretation the most is Troy. Other minor characters show this interpretation also. The title, Fences, is both literal and symbolic. Throughout the play, Troy is building a fence with his son Cory. However, Troy procrastinates building the fence and goes to Taylor’s all the time. Cory says, “ He been saying that the last four or five Saturdays, and then he don’t never do nothing, but go down to Taylor’s” (29). When going to Taylor’s, Troy is really going to see his mistress. Him neglecting to build the fence can be …show more content…
The fence symbolizes Rose and Troy’s differences in their personalities because they both use it in different ways. Bono says, “Some people build fences to keep people out...and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold onto you all. She loves you” (61). This quote shows that Rose may have wanted the fence to be built to help Troy and Cory bond. She wanted to keep them close for them to work their differences out. However, the fence ended up doing the complete opposite. The fence split Troy and Cory apart. The fence was Rose’s way to symbolically hold her family together. After learning of her husband’s mistress, she wanted Troy to call it off and stay with her. Maybe she thought if the fence was finished it would keep Troy away from Alberta, his mistress. However, once his mistress had her baby the fence kept the remembrance of the affair inside. Rose had to take care of the baby because Alberta died while giving birth. Troy’s baby, Raynell, was the living figure of the affair and it was inside the fence for Rose to always think about. The fence did not serve any of its purposes. It was supposed to keep Troy and Cory close but split them apart. It was supposed to keep Troy away from the affair but it brought the living figure of the affair not only inside the fence but inside the
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613 Words | 3 PagesTroy had constantly discovered himself censuring others for his own charms instead of assuming liability and working towards change. He declined to trust that times in America were changing, thus he assembled a non-literal wall to disconnect himself from
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970 Words | 4 PagesIn the play Fences by August Wilson, Troy Maxson presents as the protagonist. He is an unsympathetic character who seems to hurt all those around him with his aggressive persona. Troy is a selfish man, with a one sided perception on life which made him unable to accept the choices others made. Due to his upbringing, Troy is unable to show love in a normal fashion. Instead, he blocks his family out by using a harsh exterior, emotionally excluding himself from his underlying love.
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1038 Words | 5 PagesTroy displays an even greater desire for dominance over his other son, Cory, because of tension and conflict between the characters. A central conflict in the plot of Fences is that Cory wants to play football professionally but his father will not let him. As Ama Wattley states in Father-Son Conflict and the American Dream, “due to racial discrimination… [Troy] directs his son away from the dream of success and toward the pragmatism of surviving and coping in a racist society” (Wattley 3). Troy’s emotional conflict against himself and society for not participating in major league baseball coupled with Cory’s possible success creates a strain on their
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883 Words | 4 PagesIt 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.
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