African Americans have interiorized three hundred years of racism and allowed it to warp the way they think of themselves. Building emotional fences is a form of self-defense. In the way the main character Troy impacts his family, August Wilson provides an Insightful look into the culture and history of 1950's black America. The story illustrates Troy, his father, and briefly his son, in an examination of how these men serve to symbolize the struggle of men and how those struggles are often passed down from .
generation to generation. Throughout the story, the word Fences symbolizes every difficult aspect .
"Fences" is a lesson of hope. First there is hope for a better future of African .
Americans and by extension, for all human kind. If we view Troy's life as a whole we .
are seeing it as tragic. What should we expect, he was abandoned by his mother at age eight, fled in a brutal, lustful father at age fourteen, began steeling for a living and served .
fifteen years on a murder charge He holds a steady but disagreeable job as a garbage .
collector, supports a wife and son, stays sober six days a week, wins his own private civil .
right battle to become a driver and remains faithful to his wife Rose for eighteen years .
before he falls. Despite all of this, he still goes on. With his past in mind, Troy can be looked upon as heroic character. He displays a willingness to wrestle with his life and to continue no matter what the circumstances he never gives up (Grant).
"Fences" is about the always imperfect quest for true manhood. Troy's father was .
less than a true man, but he was a worker and a provider. Troy, even as a runaway, .
carried with him his father's virtues. Troy can appreciate his father's legacy and forgive his evil side (Wessling) "But I'll say this for him.he felt a responsibility towards us.he .
could have walked off and left us.and made his own way" (Wilson, 51). Because of he .
