Blog #22: "Home and the Family" Socratic Discussion Preparation

Part 1: 3x3 plot exercise

The Alpha Troy- Limited Awareness

Family falls apart- Consequences

Infant Repairs wounds- Resurrection/ Final Attempt

Part 2: Fences Questions

1. In the stage directions for act 1, scene 1, Wilson describes Troy as “a large man with thick, heavy hands; it is this largeness that he strives to fill out and make an accommodation with.” How does this description establish the character of Troy? Hard-working, strong and prone to telling compelling, fanciful stories and twisting the truth, Troy is the family breadwinner and plays the dominant role in his over thirty-year friendship with fellow sanitation worker, Jim Bono. Troy is a tragic-hero who has excessive pride for his breadwinning role. Troy was also a former baseball star in the Negro Leagues. Troy's athletic ability diminished before the Major Leagues accepted blacks. Troy's years of hard-work for only meager progress depress him. Troy often fails to provide the love and support that would mean the most to his loved ones. He insists that his son Cory abandon his dream of playing football and learn a trade. Troy loves his wife, maintains a cool distance from his children, and actively protests discrimination at his workplace. He entertains and inspires his friend Jim Bono with his combination of jovial vulgarity and wisdom, and he seeks to rediscover lost passion with a mistress, Alberta. Later, he becomes a disturbed, angry man, causing his friends and family to desert him.

1.   Is the character of Troy Maxson believable/realistic? Use textual evidence to defend your answer. I would say that that Troy Maxson’s character is believable because he’s like the common tragic hero. For one thing, like every tragic hero, Troy has a clear-cut case of hamartia. This word is commonly translated from the Greek as "tragic flaw"; however, a more direct translation is "missing of the mark." That's a perfect way to describe almost everything Troy Maxson does in Fences. Troy's relationship with his son Cory is a good example of how he misses the mark. Cory is overjoyed because he's been selected for a college football scholarship. Like his father, Cory loves sports, and this is his one chance to go to college. Troy, however, is dead-set against Cory going off to play football. One of the greatest sources of disappointment in Troy's life is the fact that he wasn't allowed to play pro baseball. Though he was a homerun king of the Negro Leagues, he couldn't graduate to the majors because of racial discrimination. Troy refuses to let his son play football, claiming that he doesn't want Cory to suffer from the same sort of heartache. Everyone around Troy tries to make him see that times have changed, and that Cory will have a better chance. His wife Rose tells him, "They got lots of colored boys playing ball now. Baseball and football" (1.1.152). Troy's best friend, Bono, says, "Times have changed, Troy, you just come along too early" (1.1.153). Cory points out to his father several current black baseball players, like the famous Hank Aaron. Troy dismisses all of this and tells his son, "The white man ain't gonna let you get nowhere with that football noway" (1.3.123). Though he used be able to knock a baseball out of the park like it was nothing, he constantly "misses the mark" in his personal life. Like most tragic heroes, Troy does whatever he thinks is right. Even though the people around him warn him that the things he's doing may have tragic consequences, he stubbornly pursues his own course of action.

1. What role does Bono play in the development of Troy’s character? Pick a scene that you think shows Bono’s role most clearly, and then explain. Bono admits that he's always admired Troy, and that he's learned a lot by following him. He says, "I done learned a whole heap of things about life watching you. I done learned how to tell where the shit lies. How to tell it from the alfalfa" (2.1.60-62). Bono also tells his friend, "You done learned me a lot of things. You showed me how to not make the same mistakes...to take life as it comes along and keep putting one foot in front of the other" (2.1.62-63). With lines like that, it seems like Bono is definitely the sidekick in this situation. What's interesting, though, is that by the end of the play Bono and Troy don't really hang out anymore. It's never said outright, but it seems pretty clear that this is because of Troy's affair with Alberta. From the very first scene, Bono is trying to steer Troy away from this sexy lady. Troy, however, doesn't listen and has the affair anyway. The last time we see the two friends together, it's clear they don't chill anymore. Troy's promotion to driver has separated them at work, and Troy's betrayal of Rose has separated them on a personal level. It seems the affair damaged Bono's admiration of Troy. In the end, Troy hasn't just lost his family; he's lost his best friend.

1. Is Troy a hypocrite? Do his relationships with Alberta and Cory make his assertions regarding family responsibilities and duty ring false? In my opinion, Troy is a hypocrite. He is very confident that he is better than many of the people around him and also believes he is better than most major league baseball players but couldn’t make it in the big leagues because he is black. He is often drunk and tends to tell extremely exaggerated stories until someone calls him out, mostly Rose, his wife. His son Cory is a great football player in high school yet Troy refuses to let the recruiters come talk to him. He represents a theme in the play of a parent being worried that their children will out do them. Troy also gets very angry and disrespectful when he doesn’t get his way. He asked Rose what time she was going to be home one day and when she didn’t know he said, “I just asked you a question, woman. What’s that the matter… can’t I ask you a question?” (2.2.31). He is also a hypocrite because he had just refused to tell Rose when he was coming home. This is also seen in Act 2, Scene 3. "She's my daughter, Rose. My own flesh and blood. I can't deny her no more than I can deny them boys." (2.3.16). this shows both Troy's responsibility and irresponsibility; instead of running away or denying that he fathered the baby, he accepts the reality. Of course, this quote is ironic and shows Troy as a hypocrite. Although Troy says he cannot "deny his boys," he denies Cory a chance to become a successful athlete. He is not responsible to his family, particularly to his wife, when he goes off to spend time with Alberta and says that he has gone to Taylor's to watch the ball game.

1. When Cory returns after Troy’s death, he tells Rose, “I can’t drag Papa with me everywhere I go. I’ve got to say no to him”(Act 2.5.110). What finally convinces Cory to attend Troy’s funeral? What does his attending the funeral suggest about what Cory’s future might hold and what kind of home and family he will have? Has he said “no” to his father? After his father's death, Cory refuses to attend the funeral. When asked why, he replies, "I can't drag Papa with me everywhere I go. I've got to say no to him." (2.5.111). For his whole life Cory has been patronized and disrespected by his father. His first attempt at rebellion was to play football, but his father called the coach and made him quit the team. Now Cory realizes he doesn't want to always be forced to comply with what his father wants him to do. He needs to be independent from his father. Rose realizes this too, after Troy comes home with a baby that isn't hers. Rose agrees to care for it, but tells Troy, "From right now...you a womanless man." (2.3.24). Rose also realizes that she can't spend her life serving a man who doesn't respect her, and decides at that moment that she is through with him. Both major characters in Troy's life shut him out after they realize they can't handle it anymore. Cory hopes to finally become his own man by not going to his father's funeral. He thinks this will somehow symbolically distinguish him from the man that still overshadows his life. Rose sees this as outright disrespect. She lectures her son, saying that it won't help make Cory into his own man.

1. What do you think is the climax of Fences? Explain your reasoning. The climax of Fences, in my opinion is when Troy and Cory’s reaches the breaking point as Cory is given  a strike after he makes a mistake of not keeping up with his chores and getting a job at the A&P according to Troy. Cory wants to play football, but Troy talked to his Coach to kick him off the team and not let him play anymore.  Instead of getting a real reason what he did wrong Troy responds was that “...you (Cory) swung at the ball and didn’t hit it/” (1.4.344) meaning he had his chance to do something with his life and he blew it.

1. Wilson has described Fences as having a “blues aesthetic.” Songs, and particularly the blues, play an important role in Wilson’s plays. Where do you see the influence of the blues on Fences? Is it in the diction? The syntax? The themes? The structure? Or does it show itself in some other way? In the play Fences, it is structured somewhat like a blues song. The play all takes place in one place like a key of music and the characters each have their own rhythm and melody that Wilson riffs off of around the common locale. Characters repeat phrases, or pass phrases around, like a blues band with a line of melody. Similar to the role of repeated lyrics and melody of a blues song, Wilson's characters display changes in their life and a changed attitude toward life by repeating scenarios in which they act. For instance, Friday, Troy's payday, is the setting of three scenes. By mirroring the situation in which events in the play take place, we can observe the change that occurs from one instance to the next. For instance in Act One, Scene one, Troy and Bono come home after payday as best friends worried about Troy's future. In Act One, Scene Four, Troy and Bono celebrate after payday because Troy won his discrimination case, but Bono is more concerned that Troy will ruin his life with his extramarital affair. Troy comes home after payday in Act Two, Scene Four, estranged from Bono and his family. He drinks and sings to comfort himself. By now, the good days of the play's first scene seem far-gone. This is a way playwrights manipulate the sense of time in a play, but for Wilson in particular, the repeated events and language of the play are in keeping what he calls a "blues aesthetic."

1. The character of Gabriel has puzzled readers, audiences, and even directors; on even suggested that he be dropped from the script to keep from confusing audiences. Some see him as a spiritual presence with a visible link to the African past. What elements of plot and character depend on him? Explain how you do or do not see Gabriel as essential to Fences. Include the final scene in your interpretation.   Despite Gabriel not being around for most of the play, he plays a bigger role than we could all imagine. Gabriel suffered a head wound during World War II and now has a metal plate in his head. The man thinks he is the archangel Gabriel. Throughout the play he's gone around talking about judgment day. Gabriel always carries around a trumpet and says St. Peter told him to blow the horn when it's time to open heaven's gates for the Day of Judgment. When he talks to his brother Troy in riddles about hellhounds and St. Peter in Act One, Scene Two, Gabe seems to observe Troy's fates with clarity. He tries, in his playful language, to warn Troy of his tragic fate. So Gabriel decides that the day of his brother's funeral is the Day of Judgment for everybody. He triumphantly raises the trumpet to his mouth and blows as hard as he can. Sadly, nothing comes out. Stage directions tell us that "There is a weight of impossible description that falls away and leaves him bare and exposed to a frightful realization" (2.5.217). We're not told exactly what this realization might be, but we suspect Gabriel may have just realized that he's not actually an angel.

1. How do biblical allusions, mythological allusions and cultural allusions develop characterization and the meaning of the work as a whole?At Troy’s funeral, when Gabriel's trumpet fails to make a sound; you could interpret it as Christianity itself failing him. When Gabriel begins his dance, he reaches within himself and finds a dance hidden inside him, a dance buried by centuries of white oppression. This idea that African Americans should reach beyond the Christian tradition they grew up in and find the strength of their African-ness is found in many of Wilson's plays. Gabriel caps off his tribal dance with a wild and howling song. By the time he's finished, we're told that the "the gates of heaven stand open as wide as God's closet" (1.5.222). It looks like Gabriel has opened the way for his brother by finding the place in him that's still connected in some instinctual way to Africa. It's quite powerful that Wilson chooses to end his mostly realistic play with this moment of magic. In the play's final seconds, the characters reach beyond their hard-scrabble lives and briefly touch the divine.

Part 3: Essential Questions

1.      What makes a house a home?

When you first move into a house, it’s empty and missing, which could say memories and personality. A house doesn’t have to be extravagant just make it a home. All you need are friends and family to help make memories. A home is like a job for an invisible person. It provides shelter from the elements, heat/cold air, and to let people settle down and take care of it. As long as you care about the house, it’s a home.

2.      In what ways does the suffering or success of one family member affect the others? If the breadwinner of the family like Troy for example, actually succeeded, his family would be affected positively and life would probably improve for them. Unfortunately, he’s black and opportunity didn’t come knocking at his door for a new future. Being the provider of the family can be just as stressful as the job, even if Troy was just a garbage man.

3.      How do traditions help define family

They help us move emotionally from one place to another; they ease pain, acknowledge growth, and create connection. Most parents discover early on that traditions like bedtime stories and goodbye hugs make separations easier and provide security. Or taking a picture on the first day of school and carving pumpkins together at Halloween help children integrate the changes of the year. Families not only have treasured traditions, they constantly evolve new ones that help them find their way through the inevitable changes of growing up, but you aren't consciously "creating" traditions.  Your family is naturally developing them. The way you celebrate birthdays or mark anniversaries, the way you say goodbye to each other every morning or shop for fall clothes each school year; anything repeated is a tradition, the stuff of which memories are made. You don't need anything fancy, just love.  What creates a tradition is revisiting it year after year, updating as your child gets older.

A. Your Questions

1. We're told that Gabriel begins "A slow, strange dance, eerie, and life-giving. A dance of atavistic signature and ritual" (2.5.219). What do you think makes this strange dance so atavistic? And how would this compare to the theme of Langston Hughes “When I Grew Older”.  In case you didn't know, "atavistic" means "reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type". The word "primitive," and even "atavistic," can have offensive or racist meanings when it refers to race. But I don't think Wilson means anything like that; we think he means something closer to "the return of a trait or recurrence of a previous behavior after a period of absence"

2. Cory hopes to finally become his own man by not going to his father's funeral. He thinks this will somehow symbolically distinguish him from the man that still overshadows his life. Rose sees this as outright disrespect. She lectures her son, saying that it won't help make Cory into his own man. What do you think? Does Cory owe it to his father to attend the funeral? Does he owe it to himself? Which choice might best help Cory to become his own man?

3. Discuss the significance of the title, Fences, as it relates to characters and themes of the play.

Bono explains to Cory and Troy the reason for Rose's request for them to build a fence as an outside observer. Bono observes that Rose wants them to build the fence because she wants her loved ones kept close to her. Bono also explains that some people build fences to push people away. Bono is the only one who knows about Troy's affair with Alberta, which he believes will destroy the bonds of the Maxson family. Bono turns the action of building the fence into a metaphor of behavior that defines the central conflict of the play. Troy pushes Cory and Rose away while Rose and Cory try to live up to Troy's expectations and meet his demands. Wilson's writing emphasizes the Maxson family's roots in slavery with symbols, themes and storytelling. Wilson's title, Fences stands for larger boundaries than the ones created physically and emotionally in the Maxson household. The symbol of the fence also alludes to geographical boundaries and legal boundaries. Troy's last name attests to this as an amalgamation of the Mason-Dixon Line that, starting in 1820 was the term used to describe the imaginary line separating the slave states from the Free states. The title, Fences refers to the choices Wilson's characters make with their lives in their fair or unfair treatment of others.