Symbolism in August Wilsons Fences - Research Paper Example

Symbolism in August Wilson’s Fences Introduction August Wilson was a playwright who inspired people to think about the world around them. He was most noted for his portrayal of black American life. Wilson chose to use the neighborhood in which he grew up to show the plight of the black American because it was a neighborhood that was poor but active. Wilson wrote several plays throughout his life and he won a Pulitzer for “Fences” (Kittel). 2 Short Biography of August Wilson Wilson grew up in Pittsburg, PA and dropped out of school at the age of 15. He was self-educated after that period but he was very active in the theater. He became a part of the black aesthetic movement in the 1960s and became the director of the Black Horizons Theater located in Pittsburg in 1968 and he published poetry (Kittel). He was most known for his plays because they each take place in a different part of the 20th Century. It is interesting to note that August Wilson’s birth name was Frederick August Kittel, which was his father’s name. His father did not spend much time with the family and after he died, August changed his name to Wilson to honor his mother. Wilson also found inspiration from a black artist, Romare Bearden. He said that Bearden’s work was the first time he had seen black people shown in all the richness of their culture. From that point on, he wanted to capture this work on stage. 3 Father Son Conflict in Fences In every good play there is some type of conflict that must eventually be resolved if the play is to do what it sets out to do. In Fences, this conflict is between Troy Maxson and his son Cory. The challenge is that the two men are actually living in two different spaces in their minds. Troy is upset because he was never able to follow a baseball career as he wanted to and his son Cory is going to be able to do what he never was able to do. Cory’s chosen game is football, and he has a college scholarship that will allow him to play. However, Troy believes that this is not a good thing for Cory and tries to discourage him by stating that he will only be discriminated against. Unfortunately, because Cory will not listen, Troy talks to the football coach and tells him Cory cannot play anymore. This upsets Cory because Troy has stopped the only real way for him to go to college (Shmoop Editorial Team). The conflict builds to a climax where Troy and Cory have a physical fight which Troy wins; afterwards, he kicks Cory out of the house. Cory remains bitter and at the end of the play does not want to go to his father’s funeral because of the things that have happened in the past. 4 Symbolism in Fences: The Fence When we think of a fence, we think about how it is used to keep people away from something. In the movie, “Hand that Rocks The Cradle” a young man asks a family whether they want the fence to keep people out or keep people in; the woman of the house says, “both,” at which the young man begins to measure where the fence will go. In Fences, the audience sees that a fence is being built by the father and son, but throughout the play the audience also understands that the fence is symbolic to what is happening in the people’s lives. As a symbol, the fence is being built around both Cory and Troy and at different times it will keep people out or let them into the lives of the people involved. Rose, the mother, is attempting to have the fence so that she can keep her family together. Rose wants a close family and Troy does not understand this because his family was never close. The fence symbolizes Rose’s need for closeness (Kyes 1-2). Troy does not like the idea of being fenced in and it shows in his attitude and in the fact that he has a mistress. Troy was in prison and had one type of confinement and when he is out, he does not want to be confined again; this is one of the reasons why he does not want to be tied down to only one woman. Troy tries to block Cory from being successful when he stops him from playing football. This is another issue of fencing someone in to some extent for protection. Unfortunately for Troy, he has hurt the very people whom he wanted to protect. He has hurt Rose by taking another woman as his mistress and getting her pregnant, he has hurt Cory’s chances of receiving the football scholarship and he has hurt his brother Gabriel by putting him into a mental institution when he has decided to move away from Troy. These issues symbolize the various fences that are present for this family. Troy is really the main feature and the reason why the family is building families against him. His irrational thinking has created so many barriers between him and his family members that in the end, it is difficult for anyone to really care that he has died. 4.1 Other Important Symbols Trains are a symbol in the play of freedom and of the ability to go where ever one wants to go. The first idea of the train happens when Troy sings to his illegitimate child in the second act. Trains also symbolize large changes in a character’s life. In singing the song, Troy is asking Rose to forgive him for this baby and to accept him back into her home; in another way, he is asking for a free ride because in the beginning of the play, he has nothing to offer Rose (Sparknotes). Another symbol is that of Death and The Devil. Troy tells tales to his friends and family that end in a struggle with the Devil. He also talks to the Devil at different times in the play. This is a symbol of how he is struggling to survive the different circumstances that he finds himself in within his life. Initially, Troy is winning the fight with the Devil but as the play progresses, he finds himself without a family and without friends which to the audience said that he has actually lost the fight (Sparknotes). Baseball has always been used in literature as a symbol of the American dream and in this case, it is more of a dream that was not able to happen. For Troy, the Negro Leagues of baseball kept him away from the finer things in life because at the time that he played, blacks were not able to play within organized baseball leagues with whites (Koprince 1). Although Jackie Robinson later broke the color barrier, this was not seen as a good step forward for many blacks. In this respect, it also meant that Troy refused to believe that his son could benefit from the times as the were now. Troy was also seen as a troublemaker so whether he would have been able to deal with whites in the baseball league has been seen by some critics as impossible (Koprince 2). He was seen as a very high strung black man who was upset about the way that whites had treated him and he did not want the same for his son. The theme of baseball also goes throughout the play because Troy relates to baseball the way other people may relate to something different. Troy relates to Rose that he married her because marriage and raising a family were safe. In his mind, this was like bunting the ball in baseball. Troy says that he took his mistress as a way to “take second” because he felt that he needed to know that he was still attractive to women, when the rest of his life was not going well. Because Troy has to be a black man in a world dominated by white people, he has found that he is in both worlds. The challenge is that as a black man, when he compares himself with whites, he is not doing as well as he would like. He compares himself in living in a world like Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson at the same time. His only time of doing well in life was also equated with his life in the Negro Leagues because at that time he was also free to do what he wanted (Koprince 3). The set of the play also provides the viewer with the symbols of baseball: a baseball bat next to a tree and a tattered baseball. This baseball is how Troy continues to practice his batting, but it is also a constant reminder to him that he once had done something important, but at the same time had been disappointed by it too (Weales 1). These two items are next to the unfinished fence and the building materials for the fence. This shows the viewer that Troy is not having his American Dream as he wanted it but instead, the dream is amongst the reality of his life difficulties. Troy talks about baseball throughout the play because he sees himself as a ball player throughout his life. As an example, he tells Rose that it is important to “guard the plate” and “always look for the curve ball” (Koprince 4). He is talking about life as he sees it and this is how he continues to relate to the world. The playing field for the family, the front yard, turns into a battle ground when Cory and Troy fight. According to Koprince, this is an archetype for some other authors where the battleground is the playing field and the ball and bat become weapons (4). This is particularly difficult for Troy because he believes that black athletes do not have a chance in the real world because they are black. He suggests to Cory that in order to be a great athlete, he will have to be twice as good as any white player. Mollie Wilson O’Reilly, a literary critique, explains that Troy’s resentment of the fact that he came “too early” to build a career in baseball, is the reason why he does not want Cory to have a career in football. This also shows that Troy is attempting to live as his father did, which makes life a bit more difficult for the entire family. While he wants to follow in his father’s footsteps, he creates challenges for the rest of his family. However, both family members (Rose and Gabriel) seem to be able to forgive him to a point but Cory never seems to forgive him, even when his father dies. 5 Conclusion August Wilson was a very strong playwright who had many things to say about African American life. He has won recognition for his ability to bring the audience into a small bit of understanding of what goes on. Some critics have compared his character of Tory to Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman. The reason this happened is because both of these men were looking for the American Dream. They both had jobs that did not work for them, and they both had big dreams that never came to fruition. The challenge for these two men was that they wanted to provide for their families in a specific way. When they found that they could not provide as they wanted to, they became discouraged and afraid. In Troy’s case, he allowed his life to be shadowed by the ideal situation in which he would have been a pro ballplayer. Instead of allowing himself to see the world progress, he chose to live in a time period that only existed in his mind. In some respects, his brother Gabriel thinking that he was actually the archangel Gabriel was similar to Troy thinking that he was less than a man because he could not be a ball player. In each situation, the men saw something that was not true that created a life that was not a positive step for them. “Fences” was a very interesting play and one that was bittersweet. There were so many things that Troy could have done if he had been able to release his old way of thinking and adopt something new. His son would have gone to college and probably would have done well if Troy had not been so selfish. The play is an interesting look into the life of some African Americans and could be very relevant today. Works Cited Kittel, Frederick August. “August Wilson Biography.” Bio.True Story. 2010. Web. 3 August 2011. Koprince, Susan. “Baseball as History and Myth in August Wilson’s: Fences” . FindArticles. 2006. Web. 3 August 2011. Kyes, Annie. “Symbolism in August Wilson’s Fences: Breaking the Cycle”. Associated Content. 25 June 2009. Web. 4 August 2011. O’Reilly, Mollie Wilson. “Fertile Ground: August Wilson’s “Fences”. Commonweal. 137.11 (4 June 2010): 20. Literature Resource Center. 4 July 2011. Powell, Albrecht. “August Wilson.” About.com. 2011. Web. 3 August 2011. Shmoop Editorial Team. "Fences Plot Analysis" Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 4 Aug. 2011. SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fences.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 4 Aug. 2011. Weales, Gerald. “Review of Fences.” Commonweal CXIV.10 (22 May 1987): 320-21. In Drama for Students. Ed. David M. Galens. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Read More