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A Fence Runs Through It:  The African American Experience In August Wilson’s Fences

                 In 1983, August Wilson wrote a play called Fences, which earned him numerous awards, including his first Pulitzer Prize.  Through the story, which revolves around the struggles and family life of African Americans in a 1950’s urban setting, he sets out to show contemporary audiences the black experience and what parents were not telling their children about that time period.  Wilson’s protagonist is a bitter, destructive, morally ambiguous everyman whose life represents the problems that the black male faces in modern American society.   Wilson’s goal is both to communicate these issues and to offer a solution.  While in some ways he succeeds in the first part, especially in terms of vernacular dialogue, realistic setting and rich characterization, he falls short of his ultimate goal by promoting an angry separatism through an endorsement of the views of a protagonist, who values independence above success.  While eloquently expressing how things were, Fences never seems to leave the audience with a clear resolution to the problems that still face African Americans today.

                 Wilson was born in 1945 to Daily Wilson and Frederick August Kittel, in the poor, ethnic Hill District of Pittsburg.  While he was given his father’s name, his father was estranged from his mother and only appeared in his life infrequently.  Because of the sporadic contact and lack of support from his father, he changed his name in the 1970’s, using his middle name and his mother’s surname.  (Smith)  When Wilson turned thirteen, his stepfather, David Bedford, moved the family to the white neighborhood of Hazelwood, also in Pittsburg.

                 It was in Hazelwood that Wilson started to experience the more harsh realities of racism, from the taunts of classmates to the outright cruelty of teachers.  When Wilson was fifteen, he wrote a twenty-page research paper on Napoleon Bonaparte.  His history teacher, who was

himself black, read it and demanded proof that Wilson did not plagiarize.  Wilson told the teacher that if he demanded proof from him, then he should be demanding did it of the whole class.  After receiving a failing grade on this paper, Wilson dropped out of classes and “never went back.” (Kennedy)

                 Wilson then started working odd jobs while educating himself in the library every day.  In 1963, he joined the army, but obtained a discharge after just one year.  It was around this time that Wilson decided to become a writer.  He bought a typewriter, some blues records, and set to work.  As he said to People magazine:

Everything fell into a new place.  I lived in a rooming house in Pittsburgh at the time with this odd assortment of people.  I had never connected them to anything of value.  I began to look at these people differently, and at myself differently.  I realized that I had history and connection—the everyday poetry of the people I'd grown up with. (Kennedy)

Wilson began to write in earnest, starting with poetry, and then moving on to become a playwright in the late 1970’s.  Along the way, he became involved in several community theater groups, and now considers himself to be a black nationalist, which is to say that he feels that all people of African ancestry share a common heritage and destiny, to the point where they constitute their own nation regardless of what nations they may live under today.

                 In matters of theater, Wilson can fairly be considered a separatist, saying that blacks must control their own venues because they “cannot allow others to have authority over [their] cultural and spiritual products."  He has stated that colorblind casting is “an aberrant idea” and called the notion of an all-black production of Death of a Salesman “an assault on our presence, an insult to our intelligence”.  In general, he has insisted that only black actors should play black roles while white actors play white ones.   This political ideal of separation and independence infuses the plot. (Saltzman et al.)

                 Fences takes place in an unspecified American city, in the poorer part of town, with all the action occurring in the front yard of Troy and Rose Maxson’s home.  Troy once had a promising career in baseball but was relegated to the Negro League, and is now a garbage collector who, even as he nears retirement age, is forced to do the heavy lifting instead of driving the truck.  Before baseball, he had been thrown out by his father and lived was homeless and poor until he was imprisoned for 15 years after killing someone in the course of a robbery.  His only connection to his parents is Gabriel, his brain-damaged brother, a pathetic walking casualty of war who he alternately cares for and takes financial advantage of.

                 Troy is seething with anger and resentment at his poor lot in life.  He drinks too much and is unfaithful to the wife he says he loves because he finds his family to be a burden, though he prides himself for managing that weight.  He is cold and distant to his sons, Cory and Lyons, acting to thwart their ambitions by demanding that they live by his ruthless practicality and jaded cynicism.  The climax comes when his lover dies in childbirth, leaving him with an infant daughter and precipitating a crisis with Rose and Cory.  The play ends, rather abruptly, with his funeral, leaving few of the original problems resolved.

                 Troy’s external problems revolve around how to raise his family responsibly, through compromises he finds acceptable.  He wants to remain faithful to Rose, but cannot say no to Alberta’s carefree charms (Wilson page 1358), which leaves him burdened with a baby he cannot raise himself.  He would like an easier role in his backbreaking job.  Gabriel is becoming harder to deal with, as well.  Finally, his son, Cory, wants to go into college on a football scholarship, which goes against Troy’s hostility towards both sports and education. (Wilson page 1340)

                 Troy’s internal problems are focused on the traits he chooses to keep.  He is bitter about his position in life due to his failed baseball dreams.  Troy is stubborn, conservative, and emotionally cold to the needs and wants of his family.  He refuses to acknowledge that things are getting better for African Americans, and as a result he will not allow his son to enter college.  As Rose points out, “Times have changed from when you was young, Troy.  People change.  The world’s changing around you and you can't even see it.”  (Wilson page 1350)  Wilson forces the audience to look at Troy’s desires to keep his son out of a white educational institution, having Troy state that Cory will always be unhappy.

                 The play reflects the modern problems faced by many American minorities quite accurately, showing how years of poverty and lack of opportunity can wear people down and leave them desperate.  More deeply, it presents the characters with the two choices that all Americans have to deal with.  Human beings, not just minorities, can either recognize progress by letting go of the past and learning from it, or they can hold on to their anger indefinitely, like Troy.  Troy says:

"I don't care where he coming from, the white man ain't gonna let you get nowhere with that football noway.  You go on and get your book learning so you can work yourself up in that A&P or learn how to fix cars or build houses or something, get you a trade.  That way you have something can't nobody take away from you.  You go on and learn how to put your hands to some good use.  Besides hauling people's garbage."

 

What Troy did not understand is that America is a diverse country, filled to the brim with many different nationalities that have to work together in order to survive.  Functioning in this society does not mean giving up culture, but it does mean recognizing that individual culture will become part of the whole.  Retaining the individual taste is really quite possible.  In sociological terms, America used to be seen as a melting pot.  Today, America should be looked at as a salad, with many different ingredients covered by the same dressing.

                 In the end, Troy resolves some of his problems but goes to the grave with the rest.  The dilemma of choosing between Alberta and Rose solves itself when the former dies and the latter effectively ends their marriage in return for caring for the baby (Wilson 1361).  He does get promoted to being a driver, after having the guts to file an official complaint with the union.  Cory’s future ceases to be Troy’s concern after he throws his son out and Troy sends Gabriel away to an institution that splits its monthly government check with Troy.  One interesting twist is that Cory, denied an education, finds success in the military, which seems to parallel Wilson’s own history.

                 Troy never does recognize progress.  He makes the same mistakes his father did, pushing back the betterment of his family by a generation.

"A man's got to do what's right for him.  I ain't sorry for nothing I done.  It felt right in my heart.  What you smiling at?  Your daddy's a big man.  Got these great big old hands.  But sometimes he's scared.  And right now your daddy's scared cause we sitting out here and ain't got nohome.  Oh, I been homeless before.  I ain't had no little baby with me.  but I been homeless.  You just be out on the road by your lonesome and you see one of them trains coming and you just kind of go like this...'Please, Mr. Engineer let a man ride the line, Please, Mr. Engineer let a man ride the line, I ain't got no ticket please let me ride the blinds.'  She's my daughter, Rose.  My own flesh and blood.  I can't deny her no more than I can deny those boys.  You and them boys is my family.  You and them and this child is all I got in the world.  So I guess what I am saying is...I'd appreciate it if you'd help me take care of her."

Troy does not see the error of his ways and he does not acknowledge making a mistake.  Cory may or may not learn the lesson of treating his children better than Troy treated him, but the audience is given little insight into this.  Years later, Cory still has not forgiven his father, so apparently he has not truly moved on.

                 Troy gets most of what he wants and some of what he needs, but always at a price.  He gets to have Alberta and Rose, but winds up losing them both.  In a similarly ironic way, although he gets to drive the truck, he finds that it is lonely being behind the wheel instead of in the back with Bono.  Troy gets to keep his stubbornness and pride, giving up his relationships with both Lyons and Cory.

                 Troy has to give up on his outdated view of the world and take advantage of the opportunities provided.  Wilson tries to suggest that the opportunities will not make blacks happy when Troy is lonely as a driver.  However, even Troy sees that he should not retire for a couple more years, because the pay is good.  Troy also gave up his son in order to keep his own sense of pride and stubbornness.  What Troy learned from his father was to force young men to make their own way.  His conservative worldview insists on having it be that way with his own son.

                 Wilson seems to think the basic dilemma of the black male in American culture is retaining their own culture without being influenced by outside sources.  Wilson stresses personal responsibility, rugged individuality, and making your own way.  Wilson does not recognize that there were forces outside of those things that help all people succeed.  In the 1950’s, veterans returning home from World War II were given special discounts on mortgages for home ownership.  Even Troy’s own home was paid for by his brother’s army money.  However, most blacks were denied these special opportunities for owning a home.  Whites did not make their own way, they were helped out. (Race)  In this society, it is not possible to succeed without the help of others.  This is shown even in the play by Lyons turning to petty crime to sustain his musical ambitions in the face of his father’s disapproval and lack of support.

                 Some stories are timeless classics, as applicable today as when they were written.  Fences espouses views were outdated even before the events within were supposed to have taken place.  The play did not speak to an ageless audience because it never talked about the value of all cultures.  Progress is measured in how far society has come forward.  Troy holds too tightly to the past making the play seem dated and unrealistic.  Fences tries to make an argument for Wilson’s political views.  However, the message gets lost in the angry voice of the protagonist Troy, whose lofty dreams and controlling ambition fly in the face of what is realistic and considered successful, even by African Americans.

 

Works Cited

 

Kennedy, X. J. "August Wilson." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction Poetry and Drama. 27 Jun 2004 <http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/kennedycompact_awl/chapter43/deluxe.html>.

 

Race:  Power of An Illusion.  Dir.  Christine Herbes-Sommers, Tracy Heather Strain, Llewellyn M. Smith.  Perf.  CCH Pounder.  2003.  DVD.  California Newsreel.

 

Saltzman, Simon, and Nicole Plett. "August Wilson versus Robert Brustein." PrincetonInfo.com (1997). 27 Jun 2004 <http://www.princetoninfo.com/wilson.html>.

 

Smith, Jessie Carney.  Ed.  "Notable Black American Men."      August Wilson Biography. Thompson Gale Database. 27 Jun 2004 <http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/wilson_a.htm>.

 

Wilson, August. "Fences." Stages of Drama: Classical to Contemporary Theater. Ed. Carl H. Klaus, Miriam Gilbert,     and Bradford S. Field Jr. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003. 1338-1367.

 

Copyright 2004

by Amanda Evans

Date: 06/28/04