Troy as a Man

The book (play) begins describing Troy as a large man, whose personality is defined by his size, and his blackness. The book opens describing his relationship with his friend Bono, mentioning Troy's honesty, strength, and capacity for hard work. Through the first conversation between he and Bono we can start to see what sort of man Troy is.

Starting with Troy as a husband, as he and Bono are speaking, Bono mentions how Troy eyes women and bought one a few drinks. Troy counters this by pointing out that since marrying Rose, Troy has been faithful to her. He seems to be a loving, if perverted and pushy husband, as seen on page 6 where he tells Rose to "Go on and powder up." Which she promptly tells him not to start that now, indicating he behaves commonly in this manner.

Troy's abilities as a father seem to come up a bit short, at least by modern standards. His eldest son, Lyons, is a bit of a bum, claiming to be a musician. Lyons commonly comes by to take money from his father and never pays him back, but Troy, regardless of his complaints and protests, eventually gives him the ten dollars he is asking for anyway. When it comes to his youngest son, his intentions are a bit more fatherly. Cory wishes to play football professionally, but Troy doesn't wanna see him lose his job over it, nor does he want him to have to go through the pain that Troy went to when trying to play Baseball.

In modern day our society expects a man to take care of his family, to be kind, to be a gentlemen. Troy falls short in everything but taking care of his family. He is not necessarily kind, and his behaviour could today be seen as abusive.

I think overall Troy is a good man. He has a strong moral sense of self, and doesn't wanna see others hurt the way he has been. He falls short in how he treats others though, regardless of his intention.