Introduction
Fences, by August Wilson, is a story entangled with conflict surrounding an African American household who resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The center of the squabble appears to be the main protagonist and the head of the family, Troy Maxson. Troy’s hostility emerges first with his closest friend Bono, his son Lyons, and their son Cory. The author uses the conflict between father and son in the book to create a narrative that Blacks will always have to struggle to survive and the only thing they can attempt is to stay practical and back their households in the best way possible.
August Wilson uses the play “Fences” to illustrate the efforts of African American households to reach their dreams, along with its intricate social issues as racism. Fences involve a story of a Black former athlete named Troy Maxson, and his household (lntan Kurnia 16). In his formative years, after enduring a lot of challenges, he finally got an opportunity to realize his dream of becoming a professional baseball player, however, he is then not included in the major leagues due to his color. As an outcome, he has a strong sentiment toward the White American, and even bars his son to reach his dream by not giving him an athletic scholarship (listen Kurnia 16).
In the entire play, then search for the actualization of dreams has played a critical role in the characters’ self-fulfillment (lntan Kurnia 16-17). However, in this play, the author places eminence on how African American male characters fight to realize their dreams, and does not pay closer attention to the female. It, therefore, explains why the conflict majors between a father and the son. According to Wilson, the African culture and heritage should not be perceived as an element of inferiority, but it must be evidence of pride since African-Americans have their cultural uniqueness (lntan Kurnia 17). He also adds that “Blacks have been all too willing and eager to say that we are the same as Whites, meaning that they should be treated in equal measure, and should be granted equal opportunities as the White Americans (lntan Kurnia 17). His play traces the sense of challenging the American dream by highlighting the harsh experience of Blacks in a racist community. Thematically, Wilson concentrates on the narrative of a Black family unit that symbolizes African Americans struggling to get equal opportunities that will help them realize their dreams in a racist community (listen Kurnia 16-17).
The Fence of the African American’s Responsibility
Fence is a play that allows Troy to do more than just protecting the household from outward enemies. The subject of the identity of the Blacks is a crucial element that Wilson’s artistic illustration of the hostile relationship between a father and his son in the play (Sayni 1575). In the story, Troy is depicted as an adamant opponent to sports, since he regards himself as a living proof of his choice, which has not earned him anything, not even a “pot to piss in or a window to throw it out” (Sayni 1576). This is the reason why he refuses to allow Cory (his son) to participate in the same career. Cory refuses to heed to his father’s advice and clings on to his enrolment in a football school. Troy’s refusal of his son to participate in a sports career as it was done to him when he was not included in the baseball tournament due to his color is evocative of what he suggests that the real destiny of his family is based on racial social context (Sayni 1576).
Neither does the elder brother of Cory get an opportunity to engage in a professional football career nor the music of Lyons, because they are the products of a white racist community of American society. For instance, when Cory tries to sign a professional contract with a football recruiter, he scrawls at him uttering: “the White man will not let you go to places in your footballing career. Therefore you can work yourself up in the A&P or learn how to repair cars or construct houses.” (Menson-Furr 35). In a nutshell, to undergo training to secure a job is what would help Troy to go to places. The author is also able to establish that the determination to provide for their needs is the ultimate measure of one’s responsibility in society. This responsibility is assessed only by holding a job according to Troy. Thee notion on work and responsibility developed in the play is important in the literary works of most modern Black intellectuals like August Wilson, and Shelby Steele (Sayni 1576). The point of contention in the discussion is the association that is regularly drawn between the African Americans and their racial heritage.
In the play, the characters are realistically delineated; the main character; Troy Maxson is a garbage collector, married to Rose, but both are heading an unhappy family life (Abdelsamie and Abdallah 76). The dramatic action, which is slowly creating hostility is eventually resolved in the final sections of the drama, and it details Troy’s suffering and his struggle for equality in a racial community. The father-son and husband-wife hostile relationships mirror much of the play’s motif; the experience of Blacks in late 1950. Hence, “it is from realism that the author extracts the power of this play, developing both a provocative household drama, and a large comment on the society’s wrongs on African Americans” (Abdelsamie and Abdallah 77).
The author also uses the storytelling method to highlight the complete history o more than one generation in the Maxson household; the entire legacy of morals and patterns in unraveled in front of the reader (Abdelsamie and Abdallah 77). The dramatic action comprises of a sequence of stories, and Troy is at the center of the play. The most compelling story Troy discovers and tries to pass on to the rest of his household is that of America and narrows it down to the challenges African Americans face while trying to secure opportunities in a foreign land that is considered a beacon of hope in terms of realization of goals. Therefore, the whole play deeply explains the context of racism and inequality showing how it makes African Americans struggle to realize their much-dreaded dreams. The history of Blacks demonstrates the process of forced migration of a tribe of individuals hailing from Africa to a foreign land (Abdelsamie and Abdallah 78). The whole process results in a deep sense of isolation, frustration, and dislocation.
Troy’s father, who realizes that he is a failure because he is disappointed in his profession as a sharecropper during the Reconstruction period, turns almost to be an aggressive individual inflicting his sense of failure and frustration to his son by not allowing him to participate in a footballing career (Abdelsamie and Abdallah 78). Troy can resonate with his father, after witnessing the struggles his father went through in an inhumane society. However, his anger and frustrations are drawn from the dehumanizing attitude of the sharecropping economic system transform him into a selfish and domineering individual thereby destroying the mundane father-son and husband-wife relationships (Abdelsamie and Abdallah 78).
In the Fences, Troy, the archetypal of the second generation, abandons his family and escaped from the enslavement of the sharecropper economic system (Abdelsamie and Abdallah 79). However, his departure and freedom from a powerful father do not help him to realize his goals. But, it is merely one significant step in the long journey for survival. Troy’s liberation from his family, and his struggle for a better future, shows how the African Americans struggle to achieve their big dreams in a society scathed with yokes of racial discrimination.
Conclusion
The paper has demonstrated how the author demonstrates the struggles that Africans Americans undergo while trying to achieve their dreams through the story of the conflict between a father who was transformed into a selfish and domineering individual by the sharecropper economic system, destroys his family. His son, Troy represents the second generation of individuals who take the action of liberating themselves in search of better opportunities that can transform their lives. Even though Troy does not outwardly succeed in his quest, it stands out to be a positive sign that the author uses to show the determination that is within the Blacks in trying to look for better opportunities, despite living in a society dominated by racial discrimination and oppression.
