Fences that Protect and Hinder in Wilsons Fences - Essay Example

August Fences that Protect and Hinder in Wilson’s “Fences” Some fences are good to keep out bad people, but not all aregood for one’s soul. August Wilson’s Fences is set at an industrial city in the United States sometime in the 1960s. The setting is important because it signifies America’s transition from racism to the enactment of legislation that enshrines civil rights. At the center of this historical moment is the family of Troy Maxson. As the central character, his actions as a father, a husband, a brother, and a friend affect others. The play illustrates a realistic assessment of a family’s and an individual’s endeavors of finding their identities, while taking care of their families. Wilson uses characters, symbols, metaphors, and irony to depict the individual and family levels of racism, and how one family struggles to arise from personal, group, and social differences, in order to find their identities. The word “fences” symbolizes the reality that there are many kinds of fences, including the ones people put between each other and inside themselves that can protect and hinder individual growth, but it is possible to attain redemption from the fences that delimit people through free will and acceptance of other people’s and one’s weaknesses and mistakes. Some fences are built to exclude others and to hinder their growth. Troy’s time reflects widespread racial inequality that affects black people’s hopes and aspirations. For example, Bono does not even know that he can have a better home: “I thought only white folks had inside toilets and things” (Wilson 1.1.56). As a black person living in poverty and not experiencing socio-economic opportunities, he has lost his ability to believe that he can deserve better. Bono’s inferiority complex, however, comes from his ancestors who suffered worst ordeals. Bono describes his father who has abandoned them: “My daddy [was] [s]earching out the New Land. That's what the old folks used to call it. See a fellow moving around from place to place...woman to woman...called it searching out the New Land” (Wilson 1.4.104). His father is typical of some black fathers who have abandoned their children, probably because of a mixture of individual unhappiness and feelings of lack of belongingness and self-development in a racist society. Troy has experienced barriers to his own success too. As an adult, he feels indifferent to the success of other black men: “I done seen a hundred niggers play baseball better than Jackie Robinson. Hell, I know some teams Jackie Robinson couldn't even make! What you talking about Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson wasn't nobody” (Wilson 1.1.82). He undermines Robinson’s skills because he feels bitter and envious for not having the same opportunities in life as Robinson did. These examples illustrate that society has built barriers between whites and minorities, wherein racist whites excluded black people from accessing equal opportunities to the American Dream. Not all fences are for exclusion because several characters in the play have established fences because they want to protect their families. Troy wants his children to be practical in their livelihood choices because he knows how hard it is to succeed as a young black man in a white man’s world. For example, he wants Cory to be realistic about his future: “He ought to go and get recruited in how to fix cars or something where he can make a living” (Wilson 1.1.69). He rejects the possibility that Cory can be famous in football when he himself did not get his rightful place in baseball. Barbara M. Whitehead asserts that fences serve as metaphors for protection for oneself and one’s family. Wilson portrays black people as family-centered people. In particular, Rose wants to fence in her loved ones. Bono tells his friend Troy: “Some people build fences to keep people out...and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you” (2.1.32). The meaning of Rose’s fixation on the fence signifies love for her family. Her love for them shapes all her decisions in life, which is why Troy’s infidelity breaks her heart, and yet, she manages to stay whole for her family. She says: “I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams...and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and waited and prayed over it” (Wilson 1.2.122). One of the primary meanings of the title is that fences signify protection for the home, the family, and Rose gives up her own potential to focus on supporting Troy as a wife and on taking care of her family. Fences stand for the universal need to preserve family ties, to the point of sacrificing one’s dreams. Aside from the need to protect, fences can be so closed in that it can serve as fences between people, even those they love. The unfinished fence at the beginning of the story is a symbol of Troy’s neglect for his family. Rose tells Cory that his father has been saying that the latter is not helping him with the fence, which is why it is not finished. Cory answers: “He been saying that the last four or five Saturdays, and then he don't never do nothing, but go down to Taylors’” (Wilson 1.3.4-1.3.5). The play implies that instead of going to the Taylors, Troy might actually be just visiting Alberta. The unfinished fence symbolizes Troy’s inability to perform his duties to his family. Furthermore, Rose discovers that Troy breaks the fence between them. Troy has put a fence between him and his wife when he resorted to an extra-marital affair to feel more in control of his destiny. He does not feel happy with his life because of racism, and he needs to feel more powerful. He thinks that having another woman can give him more power because it helps him escape his reality. W.P. Kenney asserts that Troy’s “hard” personality puts him under a significant amount of pressure, a pressure that he seeks escape from: “His relationship with Alberta is in its own way a confession of his limitations: He must find some kind of escape or crack under the strain” (2). His mistake, however, is that, instead of finding productive means of coping with his limitations, he has destroyed his relationship with his wife by creating an emotional fence between them. These fences are breaking, instead, of nurturing social bonds. People also put fences between them and their dreams because of disillusionment with society and themselves. They feel hopeless because of social barriers to success. Gabe has put a mental wall between himself and reality because of disillusionment too. Whitehead argues that Gabe is a complex character because Troy is close to him, even when Gabe has developed a mental illness. Troy seems to be a practical person who might feel disconnected to his brother, but his closeness to his brother can be explained by what he makes him feel for what he used to believe in. Whitehead says that Wilson connects three symbols that portray Gabe’s personality: “wound, key, and trumpet. These three symbols are integral to the play’s meaning regarding survival, responsibility, flexibility, decision making, and the family unit” (3). Whitehead explains that Gabe’s wound serves as a fence against the injustice in his society. It helps him keep out injustice by living in his own reality. Moreover, the key stands for independence. Fences have keys and keys represent autonomy. Autonomy is something that minorities lack without civil rights, but it is something that Troy and Gabe aspire for. Furthermore, Troy has built defenses inside himself that affect his attitudes and behaviors toward his family. He tells his son: “You live in my house...sleep you behind on my bedclothes...fill you belly up with my food...cause you my son. You my flesh and blood. Not cause I like you! Cause it's my duty to take care of you” (Wilson 1.3.114). The statement reveals his duties to his family that has become a bitter central aspect of his life, since his dreams as a baseball player was squashed because he is black. Kenney reflects on the importance of Troy’s past to his present and future identity. He explains the disappointments that formed a harder and bitter Troy: “Big dreams, like Troy’s dreams of baseball glory, lead only to frustration and despair. Troy has looked death in the face and survived. He will not let himself be vulnerable” (2). Because of unmet dreams and needs, Troy has become a hardened person with internal fences that keep him from dreaming big because big dreams make people vulnerable. Despite these fences, the play underscores that it is possible to attain redemption from the fences that define people through free will and acceptance of other people’s and one’s weaknesses and mistakes. Troy shows the true value he puts in his family. Whatever barriers he has put up in the past between him and his family, he accepts their decisions and moves on: “When I found you and Cory and a halfway decent job...I was safe....I wasn't going back to the penitentiary. I wasn't gonna lay in the streets with a bottle of wine. I was safe. I had a family” (Wilson 2.1.116). His family anchors him to happiness, despite not feeling economic success. Finally, the trumpet symbolizes redemption. The gate of heaven opens, not only for Troy, but for all of humanity. Cory forgives his father, while Gabe’s trumpet indicates acceptance of all people’s weaknesses. In order to be happy, people only have to accept and forgive their and other people’s mistakes and weaknesses and try their best to move on despite of it. Fences depicts various internal and external fences in people’s lives. Blacks experience more than inner fences, but also external hindrances to their growth and happiness. Because of limited opportunities, some feel emptiness in their identities. Nevertheless, because of the fences they share with their families, they manage to grow and to forgive. Their forgiveness is not only for others, but for themselves, for in the end, the fence of humanity is stronger than the fence of differences and indifferences. Works Cited Kenney, W. P. “Fences.” Masterplots II: African American Literature, Revised Edition (2008): 1-4. Literary Reference Center. Web. 29 July 2013. Whitehead, Barbara M., Jill B. Gidmark, and Barbara M. Whitehead. “Fences.” Masterplots, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-4. Literary Reference Center. Web. 29 July 2013. Wilson, August. Fences. New York : New American Library, 1986. Print. Read More