Happiness

In Fences, each character has their own definition of happiness. Each character wants something that will make them happy, and they are striving to obtain it. For example, Cory wants to be able to play football for a college team, and he is arguing with his dad for the right to play. Cory says “I get good grades, Pop. That’s why the recruiter wants to talk with you. You got to keep up your grades to get recruited. This way I’ll be going to college. I’ll get a chance” (Wilson36). Cory wants the chance to go to college and become someone. He wants to be able to use his love of football to create a new life for himself; this would make him happy. Rose on the other hand, has settled for her happiness. While arguing with Troy, she says “I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom” (Wilson71). Even though Rose realized that she isn't as happy with Troy as she wanted to be, she still does her best to care for him and Cory and she has made do with what she has. She makes the best of what she has, and that is how she finds her happiness.

                Our society presents happiness as doing well in school, excelling in your extra-curricular activities and sports, going to college to get a degree, getting married, and starting a family. Our society views this as the model how our lives should go, and if you accomplish all of these things, you should be happy. I think that happiness is over glamorized and an inaccurate portrayal of reality. In reality, people have struggles that they have to overcome, they might not be the best at something, and they might perceive things differently than others. I do not believe that you have to be the best all the time, or that you have follow the model of high school, then college, then a family, and I think that happiness is subjective. What makes one person happy may not make the next person happy, but each person has the right to be happy in their own way. I think that as long as you enjoy what you are doing, believe in the decisions you have made, and always look at the positive side of things, you can create your own happiness, despite what other people might think.

                Troy is one example of someone who is creating their own happiness, but he happens to be doing it at the expense of other people’s happiness as well. Troy is using his mistress as an escape from his normal life, and seeing her makes him happy again. “She gives me a different idea… a different understanding about myself. I can step out of this house and get away from the pressures and problems… be a different man” (Wilson69). Troy isn't happy in his daily routine and he is trying to create a new happiness for himself with his mistress. He believes that “as long as it sets right in my heart… then I’m okay” (Wilson63), which goes along with my opinion that you have to believe in what you want, in order for you to be happy.