Introduction
The play “Fences" by August Wilson highlights the African American experiences and further provides numerous illustrations of racial relations. It coherently stipulates the plights of African Americans at the hands of whites in the USA throughout the previous decades and century. In this paper, the theme of mortality and death is shown throughout the play in different ways, which is in the physical realm of two characters (Alberta and Troy) as well as in Troy's story and Gabriella's obsession with the afterlife of Christianity.
In the start of the play, Gabriel introduces the audience to the them by stating, "Better get ready for the judgment” (Wilson, 1986, p. 4). This implies that a particular category must have engaged in a sinful activity, that required them to face judgment. At the decade and era of publishing this text, a majority believed that murderers were subject to stringent judgments from top authorities or the supernatural God. For instance, Troy calls Mr. Death, “the grim reaper,” several times throughout the play's advancement, narrating how they wrestled at one time (p. 20). Troy tends to believe it, while death is a fate that cannot be avoided, one should always give it a trial to go out with a fight. Troy explains that he knows that death has the upper hand in their battle but explains that he wants to make his death as challenging to come by. The play is a barrier to the onslaughts of death that remains inevitable. Troy says that he builds a fence that keeps end away from his boundaries.
On the other hand, Gabriel usually thinks about the judgment day and is obsessed with death, just like his brother. His obsession is even louder and more noticeable due to expression in his own manic and the psychotic ideas of his spiritual powers (Wilson, 1986, p. 27). The addiction that Troy has with death is as strong but, in a way, sustains. His elegant pride is survival against all the odds. The father's abject poverty and personal failures in life are reliant on death to substantiate itself.
In Troy's funeral day, Gabriel makes a declaration that Troy has walked through the gates of heaven. Even though the statement does not represent others' opinions, it ends the play and is the final utterance in Troy's death. The proclamation of Gabriel is punctual and ambivalent. Space comes to an end as the gates of heaven open and usurps fenced off the existence of Troy.
Death makes the play come to an end when it eradicates in and out distinction affected by a fence, and Troy passes on in an unfavorable status due to adultery. Wilson is, therefore, speaking against how Troy views death and how the view shows his approach to life and people living around him. If Troy is taken as a lens to view death as a natural force that should be opposed at all costs until one gives up on taking risks and has one's ability to give love sacrificed and compared to one's family member the fight, then Wilson is peaking against it. By having Tory dying unsatisfied and in amoral standing that is low, several suggestions ring in Wilson's mind.
First and foremost, regarding Troy's adultery, he took a risk and endangered his entire family rather than a chance of attempting to invest in his family. Troy allows the pressure of death to hit him to the extent of trying to find satisfaction in his life in a form that seems extreme. Somewhere outside the space, he has fenced off his entire family. On the other hand, Troy is unhappy due to his decision to find satisfaction beyond his fence. Therefore, he ruins the relationship he has with Rose, and Alberta also dies due to the baby with which he impregnated her.
Conclusion
Conclusively, it suggests that Troy's struggles of defying death and winning against it ultimately fail, and everyone who is affected by the failure is hurt. Several manifestations of thoughts and actions which are afflicted to the theme of mortality are portrayed by Alberta, Troy, and Gabriel, and most often, the ultimate results is death.
