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Troy's father beats his fourteen-year-old son and then rapes the boy's friend.
Troy understands in this moment that the cruelty in his life is represented by men. And part of the real evil that he seems as emanating from men is that they destroy women and drive them away. Troy sees the real harm that his father has done to women. And yet he also struggles to understand how a man who could be so vicious to women could also struggle to support his children. What Troy does not seem to understand -- even as he becomes the financial support of his own family -- that the abuse and the position of breadwinner are in fact closely linked to each other. The man who provides all of the money that his father has and the rapist are both men who control those around them.
Bono's father is also absent in important ways from Bono's life. Bono describes his father as being plagued by "the walking blues." This condition meant that he could not -- would not -- settle down in any one place with any one woman. Bono's attachment to his father is so...
Bono's father is drawn by the siren call of the "New Land," part of the Great Migration that many blacks (mostly men) took to states north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Life calls to both of these fathers in a key of liberty. Denied the basic freedoms for so long, both Bono's and Troy's fathers grabbed what freedom they could in their world. To the sorrow of their sons (and the women in their lives), the men carved out freedom from the niches in their families, stole chances for themselves away from their sons' futures. Men with no joy in their past will be careless about the joy that they share with others.
The sons in this play do better than their fathers, but both the sins and the ghosts of those fathers drag them down as surely as Marley's chains and locks. "Life don't owe you nothing," Wilson tells us. But parents do owe their children a great deal, and the fact that the fathers in this play do not understand or admit this means that their sons are far less free than they deserve.
When a person understands the history of baseball, much of what Wilson has to say makes more sense, because the jargon of the book can be problematic for others who have no concept of the game. This does not mean that the book cannot be enjoyable to people who have no real concept of baseball, but most people in America today at least know the basics about the game of
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
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
Fences" August Wilson Breaking Out: Autonomous Independence in Fences One of the principle characters of August Wilson's play entitled Fences is Cory Maxson, whose role as the son of the play's protagonist, Troy Maxson (Gilmour 2010), is fairly integral to the thematic issues that the author chooses to demonstrate within this dramatic work. As one of Troy's several sons, Cory represents the distinct ideology that is fairly endemic to all parents
Fences & Topdog/Underdog The course of dramatic literature reveals truths of the human condition. Drama is a study of human nature, its tendencies and reactions, its inner-most thoughts. Every play chooses as its theme various facets of humanity to study in various contexts, and some explore multiple ideas, indeed, the more, the richer the play. Take, for example, Fences by August Wilson, and Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, each of which
His father cannot see him as a new hope; because he is too busy trying to protect him from the past. However, he cannot protect him, and in fact, he lets the past influence his own decisions. Wilson seems to be saying that many black men cannot learn from their past, instead they keep perpetuating the same mistakes generation to generation. Troy is a liar, which also gives a clue