Pancake Paper

A Cycle in Fences

Is there one set definition for all father-son relationships? Many may define it as a loving and caring relationship where the father teaches the son everything he knows about manhood. The play Fences, written by August Wilson, defines it another way. Fences is the sixth play in a ten-part series that examines African-American experiences during a new decade. This play depicts the life of a black family during the 1950s. August Wilson uses back-story to distinguish Troy and his children’s father-son relationships as part of a cycle that will inevitably continue.

Wilson defines the “cycle” as Growing Up within Generations of Damaged Black Manhood. The definition is defined through the use of back-story. Back-story is the history behind the situation at the start of the main story. In Fences, Troy recalls his past relationship with his father after Bono says he never got to know his. Troy speaks of his father negatively by saying, “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t known my daddy. He ain’t care nothing bout no kids. The only thing my daddy care about was getting them bales of cotton into Mr. Lubin.” Troy only experienced half the role his father should have taken as a parent. He only received the need-based side and not the emotional side, in which his father would shown Troy love and concern. As a result, Troy left his father’s home at the age of fourteen after a physical altercation with him and lived homelessly. He ended up impregnating a woman and giving birth to his first son, Lyons. To provide for his new family Troy starts stealing, which results in him being locked up for fifteen years. This leads to Troy not having a true relationship with Lyons and not having a true sense of manhood. If Troy really had a sense of true manhood, he would have decided to provide for his family legally. Troy’s actions lead him to becoming a flawed character and the cycle repeating itself.

Troy’s relationship with his son Lyons isn’t ideal. Troy wasn’t around to watch Lyons grow up and teach him about manhood. As a result, Lyons comes continuously to Troy for financial stability. This action should only be done when the son is still a boy, not a full-grown man. This gives Lyons the sense that manhood is going to your father to solve financial problems. In one incident, Troy tries to refuse Lyons’ request for ten dollars. After Troy questions Lyons’ lifestyle and how he was raised, Lyons responds defensively by saying to Troy, “You can’t change me Pop. I’m thirty-four years old. If you wanted to change me, you should have been there when I was growing up.” Troy has caused this reaction from Lyons simply because he didn’t teach Lyons about manhood and responsibility, even though responsibility is one lesson Troy managed to pick up from his father. Now Troy is left supporting Lyons financially. Troy also fails in his relationship with Lyons when he doesn’t support Lyons aspirations to be a musician. When Lyons invites Troy to see him play at the Grill, Troy says no. Bono even tries to encourage Troy to go by saying, “You got to be good to play down at the Grill.” Bono wants to imply that Lyons is a good musician and Troy won’t have wasted his time if he went. By Troy not going to see Lyons play, Lyons descends into a downward spiral at the end of the play and another reason is noted why the cycle continues.

Even though Troy has more of a relationship with Cory, the relationship still fails. At the center of their conflict is that Cory wants to play football after being recruited and Troy doesn’t want him to. Troy tries to stop Cory from playing by telling Cory’s coach that Cory can no longer play football, which causes the coach to tell the recruiter for Cory not to come. The reason for Troy’s action is the failure Troy experienced when trying to pursue baseball. Troy doesn’t believe that blacks can be successful in professional sports because he came up during times of segregation. On the topic of coloreds succeeding in sports, Troy says to Cory, “The colored guy got to be twice as good before he get on the team. That’s why I don’t want you to get all tied up in them sports. They got the colored on the teams and don’t use them.” Although Troy has good intentions, he puts his relationship with Cory one step backwards by not supporting him. Troy can’t come to grasp that times have changed for coloreds, even with everyone naming various successful colored players. The relationship takes another step in the wrong direction when Troy tells Cory he doesn’t have to like him to be his father, just provide for him. Once Cory questions this, Troy responds with, “It’s my job. It’s my responsibility! Cause it’s my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you!” Troy doesn’t realize there is more than just providing for your children, but also loving, caring, and even liking them involved. He fails to realize this because his father also failed to realize it when it came to his children. All of this conflict leads to Troy and Cory’s physical altercation. By the middle of the play, Cory is fed up with Troy’s ways and that he cheated on his mother. Cory decides to confront Troy, resulting in shoving, hitting and use of a bat. Troy then kicks Cory out of the house and their relationship ends the same way as Troy’s did with his own father.

The cycle that Wilson introduces in the play cannot be broken. The characters succumb to it continuously. It starts with Troy’s father failing Troy and then Troy failing with Lyons and Cory. It continues as Lyons and Cory repeat Troy’s lifestyle after his death. Lyons has lost his woman, Bonnie, which is revealed to the reader when he says, “Me and Bonnie been spilt up about four years now.” The split is caused by Lyons thinking that he was slick cashing other people’s checks and being locked up for three years. Lyons mirrors Troy’s life because Troy had lost Lyons’ mother when he stole to provide for her and landed in jail. Cory tries to break the cycle by trying to break away from Troy’s shadow. He wants to do this by not attending Troy’s funeral. Rose tells Cory, “That shadow wasn’t nothing but you growing into yourself. You either got to grow into it or cut it down to fit you. But that’s all you got to make life with. That’s all you got to measure yourself against that world out there. Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn’t…and at the same time he tried to make you into everything he was.” Rose is telling Cory that he can live like this shadow, his father, or make it to fit into whom he really is. The reader is left wondering which path Cory chooses, but given insight when Cory chooses to go to Troy’s funeral. Cory is still going to live part of his father’s life, but not all of it; making parts of it unique to himself.

Father-son relationships are analyzed throughout the play Fences. In the play, these relationships fail to succeed because they always fall to conflict. The reason for the break down is lack of communication. Not a single character attempts to fully understand another but instead always questions their actions, such as Rose did with Troy’s when speaking with Cory. She states, “I don’t know if he was right or wrong…but I do know he meant more good than he meant harm. He wasn’t always right.” Troy wanted the best for his children, even if his methods were unconventional. Lyons and Cory still managed to learn from Troy. So maybe there is one definition for all father-son relationships and that is ultimately that the son learns something from his father.