" (Wilson1764) The purchasing of a television is a metaphor for the pursuit of happiness, and the fixing of the roof is a metaphor for taking care of ones responsibilities. Troy was a hard working black man who had professional caliber athletic abilities. In a perfect society, he should have been able to afford a television while maintaining his house. Despite his own hard work and natural abilities, he was not able to both purchase a television and maintain his house. The reason why a hard working and talented man could not afford to buy a TV can be explained by the presence of racism. In this section, Wilson is outlining the recurrent theme in Fences. Blacks are left with an inability to pursue happiness while taking care of their responsibilities. This inability for blacks to pursue happiness does not come from negligent behavior, but arises out of racism.
Wilson's theme runs throughout the play and every time a character tries to pursue happiness, they are unsuccessful or are met with tragedy. An example of a dramatization of this theme is when the character Cory tries to pursues happiness through playing football. His pursuit was thwarted because of Troy's actions. Cory's football pursuits were defeated by Troy because of one of two reasons. The reasons are either Troy does not believe that a black man could be successful in professional sports or that Troy is insecure about having a son succeed in sports where he could not. If the reason was that blacks could not succeed in sports, then it is directly because of racism in America. Troy's being unsuccessful in sport was the result of racism in America. So either reason for Cory's ultimate failure in football is centered on oppression due to racism. Cory"s lack of success in his pursuit of happiness, can be directly attributed to racism in America. This is an example of Wilson dramatizing his theme that blacks can not successfully pursue happiness while acting responsibly because of racist oppression.