Commentary+on+the+play+Fences

//Fences// is about the main character Troy and his life as a worker and as a man in the early fifties and the issues of black people during this generation. Bono, Troys friend goes to Troy's house for their weekly ritual of drinking and talking. Troy has asked Mr. Rand, their boss, why the black employees aren't allowed to drive the garbage trucks, only to lift the garbage. Bono thinks Troy is cheating on his wife, Rose. Troy and Rose's son, Cory, has been recruited by a __college__ football team. Troy was in the Negro Leagues but never got a chance to play in the Major Leagues because he got too old to play just as the Major Leagues began accepting black players. Troy goes into a long epic story about his struggle in July of 1943 with death. Lyons shows up at the house because he knows it is Troy's payday. Rose reminds Troy about the fence she's asked him to finish building.

a writer for amptoons wrote "Some friends and I saw August William’s //Fences// last night. It’s a great play, of __course__, and the production, actors, set, __lighting__, was impressive. //Fences// is part of Wilson’s 10-play “Pittsburgh Cycle,” about Blacks in America in the 20th century. Each play takes place in a different decade of the 20th century, all but one in the same black neighborhood in Pittsburgh; some characters in plays set late in the cycle are descendants of characters from earlier in the cycle. I’ve been fantasizing about seeing the entire Pittsburgh cycle, in order. //Fences//, despite some humor and despite stunning, lyrical dialog, is as grim a play as I’ve ever seen; one character has some hope in act 1, but it’s crushed by the __start__ of act 2 and very little new hope comes to replace it. Any great play will have multiple interpretations, but for me //Fences// is about how racism’s scars do not go away quickly, if at all."

In 1965, August Wilson’s “Fences” was created as the fifth part of his Pittsburg Cycle of dramas of the 20th Century investigation of the evolution of black culture. The play has an influx of symbolism and metaphors that tells the late life story of Troy Maxon and the family that surrounds him. Even from the beginning of the drama there is conflict and foreshadowing that can be attributed to his own belief that he has failed in life and that the world did not give him what he deserved. He believes that he has to go outside of the family to find refuge and that is how the story begins and ends. Using Formalistic analysis the essay will focus on the motifs that occur in each act and scene of the drama to build to the last scene and the conclusion of the playThe point of view through out the play is through the eyes of Troy Maxon as viewed by the audience. He is the lead in the drama, and all plots revolve around his life and his decisions, some good and others not so good. These motifs also give the audience an understanding as to the life of the African American, both male and female, in the mid to late 1950s and early 1960s. Life was getting better in the sense of gaining citizenship, but this was also before the civil rights movement and shows that citizenship did not mean acceptance or understanding of the assimilated African American culture, or putting into the open the injustice of the past media type="youtube" key="UBTXS42dj40" height="300" width="535" align="right"