¶ … Fences" August Wilson The Influence of Sports in Fences

Sports is one of the principle motifs in Fences, a play written by August Wilson, and is utilized to facilitate the other themes that this work of drama explores. The protagonist, Troy Maxson (Gilmore), is a former Negro leagues baseball player who is still attempting to reconcile his attempts at a career in professional baseball with the fact that he was not permitted to pursue this option due to a racial barrier at the time he was playing. His son, Cory Maxson, is a high school football player with promise who has the potential to play collegiate ball. Due to these facts and their effects upon the characterization of both of these individuals, Wilson utilizes the motif of sports to demonstrate a lot of the pertinent themes that Fences is based upon -- such as questions of race and justice (Burbank 118), the assertion of autonomy and manhood, and the pursuit of life and its ravager, death.

Cory and Troy are embroiled in a prolonged conflict for the vast majority of Fences, largely due to the fact that the former wishes to pursue an opportunity to play collegiate football against the wishes of the latter. In this respect, it is fairly apparent that Troy is still bitter about his experience playing baseball in the Negro leagues, and was not allowed to play major league baseball because of restrictions against African-Americans. Despite the fact that such restrictions for playing professional sports based on race have been removed during the time period in which Fences takes place, Troy still does not want his son to pursue football because of the limitations of the former's sports career. This conflict between these two players is facilitated through the motif of sports, which the following quotation demonstrates.

Cory: The Braves got Han Aaron and Wes Covington. Hank Aaron hit two home runs today. That makes forty -- three.

Troy: Hank Aaron ain't nobody. (Wilson 1986).

The conflict and tension that characterizes the relationship between Troy and Cory...

Cory is essentially alluding to the fact that African-Americans are able to play sports (and baseball in particular, his father's former sports) at the highest professional level in the United States. The implications of this quotation, of course, are that Cory should earn a collegiate scholarship to play football because the racial restrictions on sports that affected his father's career are no longer in place. Yet Troy's resistance to both his son and his son's wishes to play professional sports are evinced in his disparaging of Hank Aaron, who Troy states "ain't nobody." This discussion about the professional sports that is going on at the time during which Fences is set shows that one of the central elements of the plot of this play, Wilson and try's conflicts over Troy's collegiate pursuit of a football career, is illustrated to the reader through the means of sports.
In many ways, Troy's attitude of defiance towards the football aspirations of his son characterizes his attitude of defiance towards life in general. Due to the fact that Troy was not able to play baseball professionally at the highest level, one of the major themes of Fences is his dissatisfaction of his own life (Gantt 10). This dissatisfaction is evinced through the acts of infidelity he commits against Rose, through the tension and animosity he bears towards his children (both Cory and, to a lesser extent, his other son Lyons), as well as the sense of disillusionment that colors his own self-perceptions as a garbage man who was good enough to, but prevented from playing professional baseball. Again, this attitude of defiance that is an integral part of Troy's characterization is elucidated most clearly through the motif of sports, and perhaps most poignantly by a metaphor invoking baseball, as the following quotation evinces. "Death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner" (Wilson 1986). This quotation not only illustrates Troy's attitude of defiance towards life (which is exemplified by his disdain for death, which represents the ultimate…