Fences - Summary

Ed Pomeroy
September 26, 2012
Ms. Closs
English 3 CP
Fences
Fourteen years old and you are all by yourself. I couldn’t even imagine having to feed
and clothe myself at that age. How do you think that could affect you as a person then and the
person you grew up to be? The play Fences written by August Wilson is about an African
American family growing up in the 1950’s and its struggles. Troy Maxson is the father and main
character he has had to deal with many injustices that make him into the man he is. His
personality slowly pushes everyone in his life away until he has no one but himself. Troy
Maxson has to deal with injustices throughout his life such as: family life, baseball career, and
going to the penitentiary that truly make him into the man he became.
Troy grows up in a very dysfunctional family which greatly affects his personality later in
life.   “I could see why the devil had never come to get him….cause he was the devil
himself…When I woke up I was laying right there by the creek…I thought I was blind…Both my
eyes were swollen shut.” He didn’t really have much of a father figure. His own father beat him
and basically left him to die. That was the last time he ever saw his father. That obviously
affected him because the last time that he sees his son Cory is after he beats him up and kicks
him out of the house. You can really see that it truly affects him. “The only thing my daddy
cared about was getting them bales of cotton in to Mr. Lubin….Sometimes I used to wonder
why he was still living.” Troy was basically the same way. He did the same thing every week. All
he cared about was working and getting his check at the end of the week. Troy only really lived
for that check so he could put food on the table. There was nothing much more to his life.
Troy’s baseball career changes him very much because it makes him bitter towards life
and makes him resent anything that has to do with sports. “The colored...