Social Work Family Assessment of August Wilson's Fences
This paper applies a social work family assessment framework to the fictional family depicted in August Wilson's play Fences. Using concepts drawn from direct social work practice, the paper analyzes Troy Maxson's family across several dimensions: initial engagement barriers, family homeostasis, boundaries, decision-making, roles, and the family life cycle. The analysis identifies key stressors — including economic hardship, marital infidelity, psychological illness, and communication breakdown — and considers how cognitive behavioral therapy and psychiatric consultation could support intervention. The paper demonstrates how literary works can serve as rich case studies for understanding the complexities that social work practitioners encounter in real family systems.
- Introduction: Scope of social work family assessment in Fences
- Engagement with Troy's Family: Barriers to engagement and intervention strategies
- Family Homeostasis: Factors maintaining balance within Troy's family
- Family Boundaries, Decision-Making, and Roles: Power structure, roles, and communication patterns
- Family Life Cycle and Social Environment: Developmental stage and community disengagement
- Conclusion: Need for psychiatric consultation and intervention
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What makes this paper effective
- Consistently applies established social work concepts — homeostasis, family boundaries, life cycle stages — to a specific literary case, grounding abstract frameworks in concrete textual evidence.
- Integrates multiple scholarly sources, including peer-reviewed journal articles and a standard social work practice textbook, lending academic credibility to a creative text analysis.
- Maintains a clear practitioner perspective throughout, framing analysis in terms of what a social worker would observe and how they would respond, which keeps the paper focused and purposeful.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper exemplifies applied case analysis: it takes a fictional narrative and systematically evaluates it against a structured professional assessment framework. Rather than offering a literary critique, it treats the play's characters as a real family case, identifying stressors, risk factors, and intervention strategies. This technique — using a structured framework to organize evidence from a primary source — is an effective model for social work, psychology, and human services writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief introduction establishing purpose and scope. It then moves through a practitioner's assessment sequence: engagement (barriers and strategies), family homeostasis, boundaries, decision-making, family roles, life cycle stage, and social environment. Each section addresses a distinct assessment domain before concluding with a call for psychiatric consultation. This mirrors an actual social work assessment report structure, which is appropriate given the assignment context.
Introduction
The primary scope of family assessment and engagement in a social work context is to gather the information required to respond to the individual needs of every family member in accordance with relevant urgency plans. Social workers and welfare professionals partner and collaborate with the family network to acquire viable information about the family. Concerns raised are typically addressed by examining the family tree, including both paternal and maternal relatives. This paper provides a family assessment drawn from Fences, the play by August Wilson.
Engagement with Troy's Family
The fictional family in August Wilson's Fences is a complex one. Wilson's attention centers on Troy, a 53-year-old African American man who works in the sanitation department collecting garbage. The family is situated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Due to his athletic abilities, Troy is a former Negro baseball player of considerable talent; he continued playing baseball in prison while serving a sentence for murder committed during a robbery (Shannon, 1991). Troy is a working-class man striving to make ends meet and provide for his family. He is husband to Rose, and together they are parents to Cory and Raynell; Troy also has an older son, Lyons, and a brother named Gabriel. As the family's breadwinner, Troy works hard but makes little economic progress, which weighs heavily on him. The demands of his work and the responsibilities placed on him make it difficult to give attention, love, and support to those he cares about.
Troy's brother Gabriel is a veteran who sustained a serious head injury during World War II, leaving him with significant psychological difficulties (Yağayan, 2017). Gabriel displays a deep allegiance to salvation: beyond the symbolic resonance of his name — evoking the biblical angel Gabriel — he wears a trumpet and is frequently heard chasing unseen hellhounds, believing himself to be in constant communication with Saint Peter.
Troy's family presents several distinct barriers to engagement. These barriers are shaped by theoretical assumptions rooted in developmental stages. Key stressors include both internal and external dynamics, such as the breakdown in communication between Troy and Rose stemming from his infidelity. Marriage is a vital family developmental stage that shapes the nature of the family and the relationships among its members (Hepworth et al., 2021). Troy eventually admits to having had an extramarital affair with his mistress Alberta, whom he impregnated. Alberta dies in childbirth, and Rose agrees to raise the daughter, Raynell, as her own — though she is unwilling to fully accept Troy back into her life.
Another barrier to engagement is the economic burden placed on Troy. He must work hard to support his family as well as his ailing brother Gabriel, yet sees little financial progress, which deepens his depression. This economic hardship also extends to his son Lyons, a talented jazz musician who struggles to make a living and remains financially dependent on his father during what corresponds to an adolescent developmental stage (Yağayan, 2017). Gabriel, for his part, doubts his own humanity due to the psychological deficits resulting from his wartime head injury. Overall, Troy's profound emotional detachment from his wife and family makes engagement with this family system especially challenging for social work practitioners.
The strategy most appropriate for this family involves cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), implemented through consistent visits, careful listening to each family member, and honest disclosure of information relevant to their social circumstances. Demonstrating empathy is central to assessing Troy's family. Engaging a family with this level of complexity requires collaboration with psychiatric or psychological professionals. The family presents multiple risk factors for mental illness that call for a CBT approach, which can also help identify the stressors driving family disintegration and inform the necessary interventions (Hepworth et al., 2021).
Family Homeostasis
Family homeostasis refers to the mechanisms that keep a family balanced and ensure the continuity of life for each member. In Fences, Troy's family endures tribulations of various kinds, yet Troy remains devoted to keeping the family intact. As breadwinner and head of household, he goes so far as to steal in order to provide for his family (Shannon, 1991). Troy is presented as a man who initially had his priorities in order, but as the play progresses he reveals an insincere side, ultimately betraying his wife. When faced with separation from Rose, the family system is thrown into disarray. Troy nonetheless attempts to win Rose back and preserve their eighteen-year marriage, demonstrating a commitment to maintaining the family bond even after his betrayal.
Economic hardship and poverty can fracture any family system. Troy works hard to provide for his children and his ailing brother, seeking to maintain equilibrium within the family. He provides housing and financial support to Lyons and fulfills what he views as his paternal duty. Even though Troy refuses to allow his son Cory to pursue college athletics despite the young man's talent and love of baseball, he still offers financial support when he can. Rose, meanwhile, is portrayed at the outset as a devoted homemaker, committed to caring for the house and for Cory (Kurnia, 2017). Troy's attempts to maintain a father-son relationship with Cory are evident in their conversations about everyday matters, such as purchasing a television. Despite Rose's awareness of Troy's flaws, she continues to love him and to invest in the family.
Conclusion
This family is distinctive as an assessment case because it encompasses many of the tribulations that real families commonly experience. Multiple mental illness risk factors are present across generations — from the parents to the children — all of which require targeted interventions (Hepworth et al., 2021). A comprehensive social work approach, combining cognitive behavioral therapy, consistent practitioner engagement, and psychiatric consultation, would be essential to support this family effectively.
References
Golijani-Moghaddam, N. (2014). Applying family life-cycle concepts in psychological practice with children and young people. Applied Psychological Research Journal, 26–33. https://doi.org/10.18552/aprj.v1i2.130
Hepworth, D. H., Rooney, R. H., Rooney, G. D., & Strom-Gottfried, K. (2021). Direct Social Work Practice: Theory and Skills (10th ed.). Independently published.
Kurnia, N. L. (2016). August Wilson's Fences: The African-American women's pursuit of dreams seen from the perspectives of Rose Maxson. Journal of English and Education, 4(1), 15–28.
Shannon, S. G. (1991). The fences they build: August Wilson's depiction of African-American women. Obsidian II, 6(2), 1–17.
Yağayan, V. (2017). Dreams deferred: Exploring the masculine mystique in August Wilson's Fences. Journal of American Studies of Turkey, 46, 117–136. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/999222
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