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DB 12: Fences

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You need to read all of Fences before doing this discussion board: pp. 444-512.

I am giving you a menu of questions you can respond to, and I am changing the setting on the board so that you can read other students' posts before writing your own. I'm changing the game! :)

So what I want you to do is if you're first, answer whatever question you like to start the conversation. Then whoever is next, respond to that person's question and answer and then address another question. And so on until they're all represented. It is your collective job to make sure the discussion addresses all of these questions (and more if you have other insights into the play you want to add).

Caveat: Each student's post should end with a connection between Fences and another work from the course to help you get ready for essay 2.

Discussion Questions:

Troy: Who is Troy Maxson? Find 3 important passages that characterize him and explain what they help us understand about his character.

Other Characters: Each group should take one character other than Troy: Bono, Rose, Lyons, Gabriel, Cory. Answer 2 questions: Why is this character important to the story? And how is this character also functioning as a foil to Troy?

Plot: What dramatic questions(s) propel the story forward? Is it the same question throughout the play? Or is one question settled and a new one generated (as in Trifles).

Setting: Since this play is part of August Wilson’s Century Cycle, a series of ten plays which collectively tell the story of African Americans in the 20th century, what issues does it raise from its particular decade, the 1950s?

Ending: Offer an interpretation of this play’s last scene.

Connection to one other work: Make a connection to one other work we've studied so far, and explain what we learn from this connection.  (Everyone answers this one.)

EXAMPLE

The play Fences by August Willson is based in the 1950’s where blacks were still severely oppressed, and change was needed to give them better lives. I will be addressing the question regarding the theme and how the setting allowed Willson to express the struggle of blacks in America in the 50’s. Personally, Fences was a story about how blacks wanted to grow as a culture and veer away from the way that they were treated in the past, but the main character of the story ultimately held his son back from his dreams of playing football because of this.

Troy, the main character of the story, is trying to help his son, Cory, have a better future than himself. Troy was an avid baseball player that was not able to make it into the major leagues because of his skin color and pushed his son so he could eventually have better opportunities than himself. Troy, however, thought that pushing his son to have a job rather than playing football would better benefit him later in life. This was a time that black people were able to play professional sports or hold better jobs, but Troy was stuck in the past and was almost holding his son back. Other characters in the play were also stuck in the past as well. For example, in the very beginning of the play Bono and Troy are recalling about their co-worker Brownie holding a watermelon. Brownie was uncomfortable holding the watermelon because the fruit was attributed to black culture. Both Bono and Troy are ok with the watermelon because times have changed, but later in the story it is seen that Troy has not developed more than his co-worker.

Cory was the most aware of the oppression that his heritage has gone through and saw the advancements in society that the blacks had been making. He told Troy about Hank Aaron and how he had been playing so well in the MLB. He says, “The Braves got Hank Aaron and Wes Covington. Hank Aaron hit two home runs today. That makes forty-three” (Willson 48). Society was starting to incorporate black culture and people into society. Cory become very frustrated with his father and decided to go into the military to spite him. At the end of the play Cory comes back and tries to avoid Troy’s funeral but after talking to his mother, Rose, he goes and accepts the fact that his father was not as progressive as he thought he was.

This play expressed the hardships of blacks in the US, but in the 50’s blacks started to be incorporated into society. This created a divide in the community between the young and old. Some were stuck in the past while others wanted to put the past behind them. This expressed the hardship between a father and son during this time.

The issue that this story had was represented in “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. The mother in “Everyday Use” that had her daughters Dee and Maggie were stuck in different points in time. This was probably set in the same time as Fences. The issue that was represented in the short story was similar because the mother was stuck in the past and thought that black women were expected to work hard and stay at home. She wanted her youngest daughter, Maggie, to stay at home and be like her. The older daughter, Dee, took the education she was given to break societal roles. Although Dee was very vain of herself, she learned about her heritage to look at all the wrong that was done to the blacks while Maggie was very attentive and wanted to please her mother. These two characters reminded me of Troy and Cory. As the audience we learn about the oppression that black communities endured in the mid 1900's and how some people were stuck in their old ways while others wanted to forget their past and create a new future for themselves.