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¶ … fences' is precisely that 'fences' and yet whilst some handicaps seem impassible, there are others that are built on mental schemas, personal experiences, and the way that we instinctively and unconsciously interpret the world. A recent book that I read (unsuccessfully traced) conveyed the author's conclusion from his years of psychotherapeutic practice which was that people construct narratives of their lives in order to make meaning of them. Frequently, these lives narratives may be self- destructive and dangerous to the person's progress. Introducing shifts in these narratives in his practice, the author often found that people were no longer obstructed by their societal or 'self' imposed fences and could move on to form totally different, fare healthier type of life for themselves. Fences, Wilson seems to tell us, are not immutable. They can be broken through and transcended would individuals so wish to do so. Some of the characters in 'fences' indeed did as much.
The characters of 'Fences' constructed numerous limitations for themselves. Some of these, it is true, were socially constructed. Even these, however, may have profited from a twist in the narrative and the characters may have emerged with a difference in their life histories. Baseball had defined Troy; had given him meaning and status. Now it left him with nothing tangible (62).
Societal and experiential limitations are many: Blacks are not allowed to drive garbage trucks (and inherent in this is the many social limitations constructed against Blacks); Troy never received his longed for change to play in the Major leagues for Blacks were not accepted at the time; Cory cannot play on the team (and thereby forfeits his chance of opportunities) due to the fact that his father forbade the
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Troy has become so locked into the misery of his past that he cannot see the present nor Cory's future and he impedes his son from obtaining success. In Troy's case, the pattern of abuse continues. Abused by his own father, he controls his son and, consequently, loses him.
Troy is not the only one who is limited by confining narratives. Rose is too. Living in the 1950s, she is confined by subservience to her marriage. In the end, fences, both physical and metaphorical, seems to be the recurrent themes of this essay. The metaphorical ones seem to be both internal and external and life at the end seems doleful, miserable, and meaningless.
Can narratives be changed?
At the funeral, Gabe blows his trumpet and no sound comes out. He tries again, but the trumpet won't play. Gabe will not give up. He does not accept 'fences'. He dances. "He makes a cry and the Heavens open wide. He says, "That's the way that goes." And the play ends. May that be a message to the reader never to accept limitations but to rather change one's narratives however impassable they seem to be?
The author's life history seems to tell us as much.
August Wilson (or Frederick August Kittel as he was…
Sources
Birdwell, Christine. (1990) "Death as a Fastball on the Outside Corner. Fences's Troy Maxson and the American Dream" in Aethlon; The Journal of Sport Literature, Vol. 8, no. l., pp. 87-96.
Wilson, August (1986). Fences: A Play (First edition ed.). New York: Plume.
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His famed position was that of the lone man, dependent entirely upon his own strength, speed, and skill, in direct competition with the physical prowess of his opponents and with no assistance from his teammates. His mental confrontation with Death, whom he sees variously as a martial force and as a competitor on the field, demonstrate the perspective that Troy has on life and the world, and they also
Wilson, Fences August Wilson's Fences allows the ordinary objects of domestic life to acquire a larger symbolic significance in their dramatic use. The play uses these symbols to dramatize a crucial moment in African-American history: the 1950s, when the great advances of the Civil Rights era are taking place, but when an audience might very well question what tangible effect they had on the lives of actual African-Americans. In presenting
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