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.

Happiness

In Troy’s point of view in Fences, I think that happiness is something that he feels like he really deserves after the things that he does for his family—he’s pretty much the only person who works, he’s pretty much the reason why they have clothes, food, and a roof over their head—and this is why he thinks that he deserves to be happy. For Troy, he doesn’t really feel that he gets happiness from being with the family that he has now because he’s too preoccupied with wanting to provide for his family and him going out and cheating on Rose with someone else in a way makes him happy because he wouldn’t be held accountable for any responsibilities towards his mistress.

I think that our society presents happiness as something that is a necessity in life. Every day, people want to be happy—whether it’s caused from the littlest or biggest things in lives. For example, something as little as saying “hello” to someone can make them happy for the rest of their day. I think that the way happiness is presented in our society is an accurate portrayal of reality just because every day, the only thing people want is for themselves to be happy or for those they care about to be happy and they’ll do everything that they can to make someone happy. For me, I feel as if happiness is a right. I feel like happiness is a right because everyone in the world deserves to be happy at some point in their life. There’s no way that someone doesn’t deserve to be happy, even if they did something that others thought of as a reason for them to not deserve happiness.

Overall, I think that these two versions of happiness—in Fences and in our world today—overlap in some points. I think that they overlap in some points because Troy feels that he needs to get happiness from somewhere outside of the house because when he’s in the house, all he can think of is the responsibilities that he has for his wife and his kids. This point overlaps with the way today’s society portrays happiness because if someone is always doing things for others to be happy, they’re going to get tired of making others happy and will want it. They’re going to go out and do something that will make them happy. With Fences, I feel like they will go out and find happiness when they want it whereas in today’s society, some people just kind of hope that happiness will just one day land in front of them but in reality, you kind of have to go out and do stuff so that you can be happy—you can’t really just expect happiness to happen.

Troy Maxson

From what I have read so far, I think that Troy is a good father, a good brother, and a good husband. Even though Troy yelled at Lyons for asking to borrow money, he is still a good father because he is trying to teach his 34 year old son how to make his own money so that he doesn’t always have to rely on Troy. Troy treats Gabriel like a normal person even though he went through the stuff he did during the war. Troy is always speaking about Rose in a good way – he is always telling his friend, Bono, how much he loves Rose. I think that Troy’s society expects that a man should be able to provide for their family. I think this because Troy is telling his son that it’s his responsibility to provide whatever he can for his family. “It’s my job. It’s my responsibility! You understand that? A man got to take care of his family,” (Wilson 38). During this scene, Troy is yelling at Cory because he tells his father that he has clothes to wear, a roof over his head, and food in his stomach because his father likes him but Troy tells Cory that it’s not because of that, instead it’s because it’s his responsibility as a man and father of the family to provide for them the best that he can. I think that Troy is a good man because even with the society back then when African Americans aren’t allowed to do a lot of things, he still does all that he can to provide for his family – he will works wherever he has to so that his family is well-provided for. I think that one of his weaknesses is always yelling at his family and I think that one of his strengths is how hard working he is. The standards that our current society has for men is that they should be able to provide for their family, treat their wife the right way, and treat their kids the right way. I think that Troy would live up to these standards because in the play, he treats his family right. Even though he yells at his kids, I feel like he is only doing so to teach them about how hard it was to get by each day during that time period so that they don’t have to go through it the way he does.

The Legacy of August Wilson

August Wilson’s legacy was his 10-play cycle that covered every decade of the 20^th century. His plays were always about the history of African American’s in the 20^th century. “Wilson is best known for his 10-play cycle…the plays chronicle the African American experience in the 20^th century America…” (Biographical Sketch of August Wilson). When he was younger, he was always threatened and harassed because he was the only African American in his school. Also, when he was 15, a teacher accused him of plagiarizing a 20 page paper and he dropped out of school. After he dropped out of school is when he began to write his plays based on the life of African Americans during that time (Biographical Sketch of August Wilson). The legacy of his reveal a larger message about how race, power, and language intersect in the United States because as you can see in the previous sentences above, he was treated like he was lower than the people around him for being the only African American in his school community. Language and power go along with race because the way a person speaks vary among people by their income, education, their age, gender, their location, and themselves. “…ways of speaking vary among members my income and education, age, gender, geographical location, and the individual,” (Language, Power and the Performance of Race and Class). An example of how race, power, and language intersect in the United States is when Ralph Nader accuses Obama of “talking white”. This goes back to language, power, and race because Mr. Nader thinks that since Obama is “half African American”, he shouldn’t want to “talk white” but Obama’s father is Kenyan and his mother is White American and the reason that Obama “talks white” is because he was more around his mom’s side of the family and that’s how he grew up talking. Also, he is just talking in a very formal and professional manner since he is the President of the United States. People talk in different ways when they are in different situations. “…people speak differently in informal encounters with peers than in more formal interactions in institutions,” (Language, Power and the Performance of Race and Class).