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Fences Symbolism Essay

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Fences Symbolism Essay
“Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create an artificial sense of profundity.”-Stephen King. August Wilson’s play, “Fences”, explores an African American family dealing with poverty, segregation, racism etc. in the late 1950s. The play narrows in on Troy Maxson, an African American man who had trouble facing the harsh reality of not fulfilling his dream of playing baseball. Throughout the play, Wilson created a remarkable imagery of his main characters building a fence surrounding their house. The fence represented a unique expression for each main character of “Fences”. A fence represented nurturing and comfort for Rose, that’s why throughout the play she push the ideology of having a fence in their yard. The Inability to finish …show more content…
The main character Troy Maxson was a unique character throughout the play because he was both an antagonist and protagonist. The Inability to finish the fence from Troy and Cory started the fall of Troy and Rose marriage and the family relationship. “The fence appears finished only in the final scene of the play, when Troy dies and the family reunites. The wholeness of the fence comes to mean the strength of the Maxson family and ironically the strength of the man who tore them apart, who also brings them together one more time, in death.” (SparkNotes Editors) I notice that each main character in fences went against conformity. Cory went against conformity when he told his father he was going to play football, African American children at the time was condition to not even dream about playing professional sports. Rose went against conformity when she wanted to have a fence built around the house, to display her love, nurturing, and support to her family in a deeper subconscious way. Last but not least, Troy went against conformity when he gave “Death” three chances to catch him, when most people don’t like giving death one chance to catch them. Throughout this semester, I notice that most of the short stories and poems we read, the prominent theme was going against the normality of society to escape for freedom. That’s one thing I will take away from this semester, going against conformity can maybe lead me towards
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