Troy as Atragic Hero

Name: Nhat Nguyen

Class: English102

Date: 11/7/17

Pro: Garcia.

Troy As  ATragic Hero

Everyone deserves a loving and caring group of people that they can call family. In Fences, August Wilson introduces an African American family whose life is based around a fence. In the dirt yard of the Maxson’s property, many relationships come to blossom and wither here. Despite his efforts to do good by his family, the main character Troy Maxson ultimately allows his inner flaws to lead him to his lonely and tragic death. Therefore, Troy Maxson is indeed considered a tragic hero who exhibits qualities greater than the norm, and the main character. There are pieces of evidence throughout the play that further stress this point as being a good father and husband, and caring the family.

Troy Maxson played on a baseball league, and wanted to become a baseball player, but when the major leagues finally opened their doors to black players, Troy was too old and out of his prime. He wasn’t able to compete with the younger society. Troy is a husband to Rose, father to Lyons, Cory, and Raynell, and brother to Gabriel. He is a working class African American man, and he works for the Sanitation Department as a garbage collector. His character is made up of both positive and negative attributes. Troy can be described as controlling because he has all of the authority during the beginning of the play. When Troy’s son mentions an opportunity to get into college football, Troy's immediate response was to say no to his son. Troy’s thought was protecting his son from having high hopes because he believed the color barrier had not yet been broken at this time. Although this could be seen as Troy not caring for his son's future, he was simply trying to protect him. Troy is the family breadwinner, and he provided for his wife and his son which is why he was respected. His characteristics were that of a man in charge. Rose asks Troy “what you all out here getting into?” And he responds “what you worried about what we getting into for? This is men talk, woman” (Wilson. 1191) , exemplifying his strong masculine characteristics.

He struggled a lot when he was younger, living with his father because his father did not provide for the family materialistically or emotionally. Growing up in this lifestyle, Troy was either going to learn and live by example, or completely make a life of his own life. Troy always made sure to provide for his family because his own father never did for his family. He was upset about his father in the past, and that is why he always wanted to do good things to support and protect his family.  Rose was Troy's wife and mother of his second child, Cory. Rose is a forty-three-year-old African American housewife who volunteers at her church regularly and loves her family. Troy says he truly loves his wife, "I love this woman. I love this woman so much it hurts. I love her so much...I done run out of ways of loving her" (Wilson.1192). This allows the reader to realize that the Maxson family does have a foundation of love despite Troy's controlling tendencies. Even though he was somewhat harsh with his words, Cory and Lyons admired their father very much because it was evident that he cared for them very much.

 Another character that looked up to Troy was his best friend of thirty years, Bono. He and Troy met in jail, where Troy learned to play baseball. Bono is the only character in Fences who remembers, first-hand, Troy's glory days of hitting homeruns in the baseball leagues. Bono spends every Friday after work drinking beers and telling stories with Troy in the Maxson family's backyard. Bono considered Troy to be his role model because of his leadership and responsibility at work. After understanding the protagonist’s heroic side, it is also necessary to understand that he had certain weaknesses that led to him a tragic downfall in the very end of the story.

Although Troy made sure to provide for his family financially he could never really show the love that he had for his children. Sometimes, he argued with his son or his wife, and they hated him. Throughout the story we learn that Lyons dreams of becoming a musician. Lyons states "I just stay with my music because that's the only way I can find to live in the world"(Wilson.1197), and we also learn that Troy gives Lyons ten dollars per week as his way of supporting his son in pursuit of becoming a musician. Despite the fact that Troy never outwardly expresses his support for Lyons dream, Lyons continues aspiring to reach his goal. Troy was known to be jealous of Cory because his son got the opportunity to play a sport despite his race, unlike Troy.  The reason Troy has this mentality is because he grew up loving sports, just like his son, during the time of the leagues. He was discriminated against and he thinks that that is what Cory would go fail. Again he tries to protect his son, but it wasn’t in the best way. Cory expressed his feelings to his dad in this quote: "Papa done went up to the school and told Coach Zellman I can't play football no more. ...Told him to tell the recruiter not to come... Just cause you didn't have a chance! You just scared I'm gonna be better than you, that's all." (Wilson.1193). Cory is clearly stressing the fact that his father said no and blames it on his jealousy. However, he is too young, and he does not realize his father is trying to protect him from discrimination.