August Wilson\'s Play Fences

¶ … Wilson's play Fences, one of the primary conflicts is between father and son, a conflict of a sort that recalls many such encounters between fathers and sons. Troy is the father and Cory the son. They are much alike, which is likely where the conflict develops in their case. As is often true between father and son though, the primary conflict derives from their different experiences, with Troy having a long history to remember, a history of hardship and hard lesson, s while Cory has had a softer life and is not learning the lessons that Troy learned, at least not soon enough to satisfy his father.

Troy's experience is clear in the play because he and Bono talk endlessly about it, recalling the days of their youth. Troy has particular memories of his own relationship with his father, a man who taught him much and who was also harsh toward him when he was young. In many ways, Troy is inadvertently playing out that same pattern with his own son now, for he is also violent toward Cory at times and deep-down believes he is teaching the boy important lessons by being harsh with him. He wants the boy to learn the lessons he learned and so be ready for the disappointments that life brings, with the central one held out in the play being his own inability to play professional baseball because when he was in his prime, baseball did not allow black players and would not until after Jackie Robinson broke down that barrier. Now, Cory also wants to play in sports, and his father wants him to get a job and stay out of sports.

Of course, times have changed, which is what Cory keeps trying to say to his father, but Troy remembers what it was like and has also learned certain truths which he believes Cory should take to heart. Cory wants to play football, but Troy tells him no black man can play on a team in the same way a white man can play: "The colored guy got to be twice as good before he gets on the team. That's why I don't want you to get all tied up in them sports" (36). In his own recent experience, he has had to be twice as good as white employees to get the chance to drive a truck, but he does get that chance, which is a surprise to virtually everyone given the tenor of the times: "When they called me down there to the Commissioner's office... he thought they was gonna fire me. Like everybody else" (43).

Cory pretends he is doing what his father wants, when in fact he does not have a job and is pursuing football even though his father told him not to do so. Cory wants to play so the recruiter will see him, but Troy wants the boy to stay way from sports and concentrate on work. Troy is the only one who sees something wrong with what Cory wants. Lyons thinks getting recruited and going to college would be a good thing, but Troy seems opposed in part because Cory would be going against his wishes: "Thinking he's gonna do what he want, irrespective of what I say" (49). He is exercising the same sort of power over Cory that his father exercised over him. He did not like it when his father did that with him, yet he cannot see that he is continuing the pattern in the next generation.

Lyons tells Troy that Cory is just growing up and acting out like all boys: "He's just busting at the seams trying to fill out your shoes" (49). Troy cannot or will not see it this way, for obedience is what he demands from Cory and what cory is failing to give him. Rose tells Troy there is nothing wrong with Cory playing football, and he answers, "The boy lied to me" (56). Cory sees playing football for the recruiter to get into a good college as his only chance, but Troy is more interested in retaining power and in being heeded than he is in what Cory wants or even what might better his life. For Troy, his own experience and the work he does is good enough and should be good enough for his son. It is as if seeing his son go beyond him would be too hard to bear.

This is what Cory believes, at any rate, and tells his father so in their final confrontation: "You ain't never gave me nothing! You ain't never done nothing but hold me back. Afraid I was gonna be better than you" (80). This is an important scene as father and son confront one another on the porch. The confrontation actually begins at a high point and escalates from there. Until this point, the conflict between the two has been open but not so confrontational, but Cory now comes into the yard while his father, after drinking with Bono, is sitting on the porch singing. Cory immediately wants to go in the house and tells his father to move, which his father refuses to do. The image is clear -- Troy is an obstacle, just as he has been about Cory's football playing and other things. The conflict increases rapidly as Cory tells his father what he thinks and the father advances on the boy. Cory grabs up the baseball bat, and Troy seems most concerned that it is his own bat: "That's my bat!" (81).