How Wilson Uses the Hostility Between Father and Son in Fences as a Means of Treating Larger Social Issues for Blacks in America.
Introduction
Troy and Cory Maxson’s relationship is very complicated. It is full of bitterness and a lot of tension. The pain is due to Troy’s experience. Having experienced rejection and neglect from his mother and father, he believes to have seen life at its very worst. He goes further into building a fence of misery and hatred around himself, preventing his family from getting closer to him. Troy is later seen to treat Cory with a lot of bitterness just the way he was treated. His hatred towards Cory is a reflection of his past encounters with his father. Troy fails to see life in his son, even in the evolving world. He is, at the same time, unable to understand his father’s perception of society. Therefore, the misunderstanding can be said to be related to socio-cultural factors, which is the foundation for racism.
Troy fails to let his son live a life of fulfillment by allowing him to achieve his dreams resulting in a constringent relationship. According to Cory, racism had played a significant role in hindering him from achieving his goals (Wattley.,15). He keeps on lamenting about this fact, and he seems not to get over it. His father does not let him play soccer because he feels football would not put him better as long as he played with white men. “The white man isn’t going to let you get nowhere with that football no way. You go on and get your book – learning so you can work yourself up in that A & P or learn how to fix cars or build houses or something, get you a trade. That way, you have something can’t nobody take away from you” (Wilson.,1130). Cory follows his father’s belief and denies that his son participates in sports simply because he also believes the blacks cannot contest the whites (Wattley.,15).
Troy Maxson, during his youth, was prevented from playing various games. Despite having been a good baseball player, he was not allowed to participate in major games because he was black, and the whites were always given top priority (Wattley.,17). This act had a lot of psychological effects on him, making him internalize the evil that existed in racism. He developed a feeling that the blacks would never enjoy any privileges in life as the whites did. On the other hand, his son, having been born in an era where things were quite different, feels he should participate in sports. According to Cory, the blacks were at least enjoying the same favors with the whites. Troy prevents him from participating in games because he cannot get over his experience and the understanding he had on whites being deemed as better beings when compared to blacks (Wattley.,17).
Troy is consistently seen to shape Cory into the person he wanted him to be rather than leaving him to exploit his potential. The different beliefs they had when it comes to playing football, specifically in a racist community, makes their relationship more alienated. From a different perspective, Troy can be seen as having been jealous of his son, but it is also true that he was trying to be protective. Troy seems to be afraid that his son would go ahead into achieving things he did not achieve in his life. Besides, he also feels his son should not be subjected to racist encounters he had been subjected to. The restrictions Troy puts on his son build up to a point where Cory feels they are too much and decides to speak out his mind. “Just because you didn’t have a chance! You are just scared I’m going to be better than you, that’s all”(Wilson,1141).
Cory is later on sent away from home by his father after involving in a physical fight with him. At this point, he believes his actions can never please his father and, therefore, he chooses to build more hatred with him. Cory, later on, becomes a marine corps failing to achieve his dreams in football just like his father. His failure depicts the fact that his father had some vesting effects on him. When Cory refuses to attend his father’s burial ceremony, he seems unwilling to face the truth just like his father did “I can’t drag Papa with me everywhere I go. I’ve got to say no to him. One time in my life, I’ve got to say no”(Wilson.,1159). However, there is hope that his life would turn out to be different from that of his father. This is depicted when he finally changes his mind and chooses to attend his father’s burial after being advised by his mother (Wilson,1159).
Conclusion.
The relationship between Troy and his son in Fences can be described as a recurring phenomenon. This is due to the impact the father has on his son. Despite Troy trying to escape from his father, he cannot do so since the effects his father had on his life keep on recurring. Therefore, he takes his father’s effects, and he treats his son the same way his father did to him. He creates a complicated relationship between his two sons Cory and Lyon, who, in turn, push him out of their lives. However, his sons also fail to achieve their envisioned dreams, thus turning out to be like him. Cory becomes a marine Corps failing to meet his goal of being a baseball while his brother ends up in jail just like his father without achieving his dream of being a musician. The existing tension between father and son in Fences is quite alarming. To understand the origin of the disagreements, we ought to go beyond typical human misunderstandings to seeing the problem from a social perspective. The existing inequality and injustice contributed to Troy’s behavior, which in turn negatively affected his sons. Racism, therefore, can be said to be the core of all misunderstandings in the play.
Works Cited.
Wilson August. Fences: a play. Vol. 6. Penguin, 2016.
Wattley, Ama. “Father-Son Conflict and the American Dream in Arthur Miller’s” Death of a Salesman” and August Wilson’s” Fences.” The Arthur Miller Journal 5.2 (2010): 1-20.