Troy's Legacy

I think that Troy’s legacy is positive. Yes he did make a few mistakes, but he is only human we all make mistakes. For example as he grew up he went around robbing people and eventually got caught and had to do fifteen years in jail. But throughout the book I saw a lot of positives that Troy did. One thing that he did that was a positive was he was the first colored man to drive the garbage truck, which you could infer eventually allowed more colored drives. Troy: “Mr. Rand called me into his office today when I got back from talking to them people down there… he called me in and he told me they was making me a driver.” (Wilson 44) Bono: “Your daddy got a promotion on the rubbish. He’s gonna be the first colored driver.”(Wilson 45). Another part of the book that shows positive from Troy’s impact is the man that Cory became. Lyons, Rose, and Bono were all proud of the man that Cory turned into. “Rose and Cory embrace in a tearful reunion…” Cory: “Don’t cry, Mama. What you crying about?” Rose: “Im just so glad you made it.”(Wilson 92) Lyons was also proud of what Cory has become. (Lyons goes to embrace Cory.) Lyons: “Look at you, man. Look at you. Don’t he look good, Rose. Got them Corporal stripes.” (Wilson 92) and Lyons said something of this sort multiple times. And Bono also said “Yeah, he reminds me of Troy when I first met him.” (Wilson 92) which was when Bono looked up to Troy and idealized him. This shows that Troy’s legacy was positive and impacted a lot of people.

A life of Happiness

From reading the text I would say Fences view happiness as having fun and enjoying yourself. I think this because both of Troy’s sons and Rose support this idea. Cory shows this by playing football, the only times in the book Cory is peppy is when he is going to, or coming from football. “Cory: Did you tell him about the recruiter? Rose: Yeah, I told him. Cory: What he say?” For Lyons his happiness comes from his musician lifestyle. To me Rose supports the idea of happiness comes from having fun and enjoying what you are doing, because every time Troy tries to shoot their dreams down Rose stands up for each of the sons. “Rose: Let the boy have ten dollars, Troy” … Lyons: Thanks, Rose. Look… I got to run... I’ll see you later. (Wilson 19) and “Rose: Why don’t you let the boy go ahead and play football, Troy? Ain’t no harm in that. He’s just trying to be like you with the sports.” (Wilson 39)

I think our society views happiness of when you get and/or do what you want. People try to say that money doesn’t bring you happiness, but we all know that we would be at least a little happier if we had more money. I think the reason for that is because you can get more of the things you want. With money you could also go on vacations, or do more of what you want. This shows that happiness comes from the idea of doing and getting the things you like. No I don’t think that happiness is a right. But I do believe you can create your own happiness, so if you want happiness you can achieve it. It’s the law of attraction, if you truly believe and do all that you can to make a certain dream come true it will.

I believe that these two definitions of happiness are very similar. The idea of doing what you want is supported by both the book and our society today. Getting the things you want isn’t really shown in the book because for Troy and his family money is tight. But maybe if they could buy the things they wanted it might bring more happiness, who knows.

Troy's Fatherhood

Troy has two sons, Cory and Lyons. I would say that to his son Troy is a pretty mean father, but for his sons own good. For example when Lyons came by, he asked to borrow some money and Troy’s reply was, “What I tell you Bono? The only time I see this n***er is when he wants something. That’s the only time I see him”. (Wilson 16) He didn’t want to loan the money to Lyons for multiple reason but eventually he does. The reason this makes Troy angry because Lyons is a thirty four year old man and still comes by asking for money constantly. Troy thinks Lyons needs to take a break with his musical ‘career’ and get a job to take care of the more important things. “Yeah I got it. You know why I got it? Cause I don’t throw my money away out there in the streets. You living the fast live... wanna be a musician… running around in them clubs and things… Yeah, I can see that! It don’t matter how you gonna eat… where your next dollar is coming from.” (Wilson 18) So as you can see Troy is doing it for Lyon’s good, he needs to grow up and be independent. Then when it comes to Cory he also comes off mean. “I thought we had an understanding about this football stuff? You suppose to keep up with your chores and hold that job down at the A&P.” (Wilson 35) But we find out that he is strict about having a job instead of relying on sports is because back in his day he relied on sports but that didn’t work out for him, it even set him back a little.  Especially in their society because they treat black athlete’s way different from white ones “If they got a white fellow sitting on the bench… you can bet your last dollar he can’t play! The colored guy got to be twice as good before he get on the team.” (Wilson 34) I do think that Troy is a strict father, but only to get guide them toward success.

The Legacy of August Wilson

After reading the article Influences by Boris Kachka I learned one significant part of August Wilson's legacy. August didn’t start out great with literature but he strived to excellence, shown in this quote “You dropped out of high school but spent a few years reading alone in a library. What struck you most? I remember Levi-Strauss’s The Origin of table manners; I couldn’t read it, didn’t understand what it was about, so I put it back. I read Margaret Mead and worked my way up.” (Kachka) During our class discussion I found out that August wrote plays about the struggles that African Americans went through, which was a firsthand experience for him. During the NPR radio show they said, he was one of the best play writers at the time let alone an African American play writer. He created a ten part play that all went together but also if you just watched one play it could stand alone. The ten plays he wrote correlated to each decade of the 20^th century. He was even the first African American to have a broad way theater named after him. His legacy had a great impact of race, power and language in the United States. Since his plays were focused on the African American’s life it opened the eye of a lot of other races. He wanted equality no matter the race, which you can see in our history has happened. One example is from an article wrote by Steve Bogira he sates “Or, as the rapper Mos Def told Blaze madazine in 1999: “When we call each other ‘n***a,’ we take a word that has been historically used by whites to degrade and oppress is, a word that has so many negative connotations, and turned it into something beautiful, something we can call our own. I know it sounds cliché, but it truly becomes a ‘term of endearment.”(Bogira) I think this quote shows that times have changed dramatically. Also in this quote it states the N-word was used by whites and the title of this article is “A thought lesson about the N-word: Should a Chicago Public Schools teacher have used “n***er” in a sixth grade class” Which shows the equality pieces also, before, whites would use it all the time to insult blacks, and now there is a lawsuit because a white teacher said it one time.