Happiness

             In the book Fences, I think that each character view happiness differently. Troy finds happiness when he is with someone that doesn't always need something from him, somewhere that he doesn't have any responsibilities. “She gives me a different idea…. I aint got to wonder how I am gonna pay the bills or get the roof fixed” (Wilson 69). Rose finds happiness in being together, having her family with her and never leaving her alone. Everyone in fences defines being happy in a different way. Happiness in Fences is to find something that makes you feel good and have fun with what you are doing no matter what the consequences are. Kind of like how Troy defines how he feels at Alberta's house "I can laugh out loud...and it feels good. It reaches all the way down to the bottom of my shoes. (Pause) Rose, I can't give that up' (Wilson 69).

Society represents happiness as the will to live, what makes you want to get up in the morning. Society labels having happiness as the only goal to life, even though most people aren't happy and that's where people get depressed. I think happiness should be idealized, it’s not over glamorized. Most of the time we as individuals think about other peoples happiness before our own whether it be your loved one or a best friend. People think that it is our right to be happy and we need to do whatever it takes to be happy but in reality we need to thank about others and what makes them happy or what can hurt them.

The version of happiness in Fences and the version of happiness in society are very similar. Both of them interpret happiness as a right that all people should have but in real life that is not true. In real life we have to fight to be happy but we sometimes need to put our happiness behind other people’s happiness. We want our loved ones to be happy and we want to enjoy our happiness with them we don’t want to step on other people and make it where they aren’t happy.