Troy Maxson's Legacy

Throughout the play, I felt that Troy’s legacy is his hard-work. Back in Troy’s day, the colored people were always treated poorly compared to the whites and throughout this play, you can see that even though Troy does not like having to put up with his job because of the fact that they wouldn’t let him be a drive like the white, he still worked hard and he eventually got to the point of his career that he wanted to—being able to be a colored who drives the trucks. “Why? Why you got the white mens driving and the colored lifting?” (Wilson 2). At this part of the play, Troy gets called down to the Commissioner’s office because he was tired of the way that the colored people were being treated down at A&P and he asked a question about why they were given different tasks than the whites. “Look here, Rose… Mr. Rand called me into his office today when I got back from talking to them people down there… it come from up top… he called me in and told me they was making me a drive,” (Wilson 44). At this part of the play, Troy is telling Rose that he is now a driver at A&P and that now, not only the whites are the ones that are going to be driving. I felt that another one of Troy’s legacy was the way he treated his kids when they were growing up. When Troy was a child, he used to get whupped by his father and he ran away because he didn’t want that to keep happening to him. When he had kids, he made sure to teach them about life a different way that his father taught him. Instead of whupping hid kids, he told me to get jobs so that they could make their own money. “You was in the neighborhood alright, nigger. You telling the truth here. You was in the neighborhood cause it’s my payday,” (Wilsno 14). During this part of the play, Troy had gotten paid from his job and Lyons, one of his sons, came and asked if he could borrow $10 and that he would pay him back. Troy eventually ended up giving him the $10 but he kept telling him that he needs to get a job so that he could use his own money instead of his dad’s. By telling Lyons this, Troy was just trying to be a good father and thinking about his son’s future. Throughout Troy’s life as a father and husband, he was always hardworking and he was always tough on his kids to teach them how the future really is as an adult and he left this legacy behind because when he died, this is what he was known for doing. “I’m gonna do her just like your daddy did you… I’m gonna give her the best of what’s in me,” (Wilson 98). This quote shows how when Troy died, he was known for always doing the best he could for his family no matter what the circumstances were.