Fences

“There’s a lot of people don’t know they can do no better than they doing now. That’s just something you got to learn.” 

Rose is describing the way people can grow accustomed to oppression and settling for less. Although Rose is talking about the way their living situation improved over time, it’s ironic because Troy’s need to constantly strive for something else is what has led him to cheat with Alberta and destroy their marriage. However, it’s the same attitude that prompted him to ask why Black men aren’t hired to drive the garbage trucks. 

“The white man ain’t gonna let him get nowhere with that football.” 

Troy refuses to acknowledge that time has passed and there are more opportunities for Black men in sports than there were when he was playing baseball. He has also earned his mistrust of White people in professional sports. When he was playing in the Negro leagues, Troy wasn’t allowed to advance his career because he was Black. It’s questionable whether Troy truly wants to keep his son from being hurt or if he is simply afraid that Cory will surpass him as an athlete and become more successful than he is.

“There ought not never have been no time called too early!” 

Bono and Rose attempt to placate Troy’s anger about his baseball career by asserting that it was only a matter of timing. Troy is never able to reconcile himself with the fact that he believes that he ought to have been famous. He should have had more but was born a few years too early. Troy frequently expresses frustration with the arbitrariness of skin color as a factor in the opportunities one is allowed to have.

“Look here, I’ll tell you this…it don’t matter to me if he was the devil. It don’t matter if the devil give credit. Somebody has got to give it.” 

Troy has been denied dignity and opportunities his entire life for his skin color. From the moment he left home, Troy lived by his own sense of morality and righteousness. He would do whatever he needed to do to survive. In this case, Troy needed furniture for his home and his family, and he finds nothing morally wrong with getting what they need by any means necessary.

“I know I got to eat. But I got to live too. I need something that gonna help me to get out of bed in the morning. Make me feel like I belong in the world.” 

Lyons explains to his father why he doesn’t stop playing music to get a regular job. Troy understands passion as a former athlete, but he couldn’t rely on his passion to feed his family. Lyons doesn’t make much money as a musician, but he asserts that he needs music just as much as he needs food. Troy blames Lyons’s mother for Lyons’s way of thinking, but Troy destroys his marriage to feel the same way with Alberta.

“Talking about what numbers do for people, you picked a wrong example. Ain’t done nothing but make a worser fool out of him than he was before.” 

Rose likes to play the numbers and reminds Troy of a man named Pope who once won enough money to open a restaurant. Troy disparages Pope, claiming that he has sold out and treats his Black patrons badly in favor of his White customers. Troy has been cheated by racism in his life, and he mocks the idea of kowtowing to the oppressor.

“I’m just stating the facts. If my brother didn’t have that metal plate in his head…I wouldn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. And I’m fifty-three years old. Now see if you can understand that!” 

Because Troy lives in a house with a yard, he seems like he has been successful in life, but Troy’s shameful secret is that the only reason he the house is because his brother was injured in the war and received a government check. Troy preaches self-sufficiency and claims that he refuses to owe anything to anyone, but in truth, he is relying on his brother. This fact feeds into Troy’s insecurities and likely is part of the reason that, after Troy begins seeing Alberta openly, he agrees to commit Gabriel to a hospital where he won’t have to see Gabriel and remember his own shortcomings.

“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. Man on the team and what it get him? They got colored on the team and don’t use them. Same as not having them. All teams are the same.” 

Troy’s understanding of the role that Black men play on sports teams is distorted by his own unjust experience. As Cory points out, there are Black men who have become sports stars, but Troy isn’t incorrect in arguing that Black men do not have the same opportunities as White men, in sports or otherwise. However, the opportunity presented to Cory would allow him to go to college, which would make it unnecessary for him to rely on the strength of his body to succeed in life.

“Liked you? Who the hell say I got to like you? What law is there say I got to like you? Wanna stand up in my face and ask a damn fool-ass question like that. Talking about liking somebody.” 

Although Troy later criticizes his father for treating his own children as if he never wanted them, Troy’s idea of fatherhood was very much shaped by the way his father acted. To Troy, fatherhood is about duty and responsibility. Kindness is not part of the job, and he complains that Rose is coddling Cory. Troy seems to believe that it is his responsibility to make Cory tough and to push him until he tries to fight Troy and therefore becomes a man. 

“I don’t want him to be like me! I want him to move as far away from my life as he can get.” 

Earlier in the play, Rose comments that many people cannot imagine that they might deserve more than they have. Troy can’t seem to imagine that his son could have a much better life than he did. Cory tells his father that he earns good grades in school, and he could succeed far beyond his father with a college degree. Troy is obstinate and determined to believe that sports will take Cory down the same unhappy path as Troy.

“Times have changed from when you was young, Troy. People change. The world’s changing around you and you can’t even see it.”

In 1957, the United States is in the midst of the civil rights movement. Rose points out that Troy is living in the past, which makes sense because when Troy was younger and playing baseball, his life seemed open and full of possibilities. He lives in the past because now he has no more potential. Troy argues with Rose that he is doing the best he can with a life that has beaten him down and that he does not have the energy to change with the world. 

“I laid there and cried. I didn’t know what I was gonna do. The only think I knew was the time had come for me to leave my daddy’s house. And right there the world suddenly got big. And it was a long time before I could cut it down to where I could handle it. Part of that cutting down was when I got to the place where I could feel him kicking in my blood and knew that the only thing that separated us was the matter of a few years.” 

Although Troy seems unaware that he has become like his father, as he describes leaving home, he fully sees the ways that he takes after the man. Troy had a difficult life, and part of that difficulty was literally fighting his own father and then continuing to fight his father within himself. This is the same battle that Troy will pass down to his own son. 

“I know what I’m doing. This is outside wood. You put pine wood inside the house.” 

Bono points out that Troy is making fence building unnecessarily difficult by using hard wood. Troy insists that softer wood is only appropriate inside. The wood is a metaphor for Troy’s hard, cold exterior. Troy shows his softness to his wife and his mistress but keeps his son on the outside. He tries to teach Cory to build his own hard exterior by refusing to show love and affection. Troy does, however, show vulnerability when he brings his baby daughter home, suggesting that he parented Raynell differently than Cory.

“Some people build fences to keep people out…and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold onto you all. She loves you.” 

Bono has been hinting since the first scene of the play that he knows that Troy is having an affair. In this scene, Bono confronts Troy directly and elicits a confession. Bono prioritizes his own marriage and respects his wife. Troy has been reckless and risked his relationship with Rose because he feels trapped. Symbolically, this is why Troy is constantly building the fence but has not finished it. 

“I ain’t ducking the responsibility of it. As long as it sets right in my heart…then I’m okay. ’Cause that’s all I listen to. It’ll tell me right from wrong every time.” 

Troy has always created his own sense of morality rather than following the rules and ethics set forth by others. He justifies things like taking a job as a driver when he doesn’t have a driver’s license or robbing someone to buy food because he only answers to himself. In this instance, Troy has convinced himself that having an affair and hurting Rose is morally acceptable because he has decided that it fits within his own personal morals. When he tells Rose, he ends up facing real consequences, regardless of how well he has convinced himself that his behavior isn’t wrong.

“Age ain’t got nothing to do with it, Rose.”

Troy’s claim that his affair was not related to his age is untrue. While Rose might have expected a younger man to be more likely to have the desire and energy to cheat, Troy’s affair with Alberta was an act of reclaiming his youth. Age and responsibility have made Troy feel weighed down, and a new woman who demands nothing from him—who is about to make him a father again—represents a fresh start and a return to the days when he felt like his life was full of potential.

“It’s just…she gives me a different idea…a different understanding about myself. I can step out of this house and get away from the pressures and problems…be a different man. I ain’t gotta wonder how I’m gonna pay the bills or get the roof fixed. I can just be a part of myself that I ain’t never been.” 

Troy’s life has been centered on responsibility since he left home at 14. When he married Rose and settled down, he never relaxed or allowed himself to enjoy his own life. Cory was born within the first year of their marriage. Ironically, by impregnating Alberta, he has created more expense and responsibility for himself. Troy has never had a life in which he could be carefree. Even as a child, he lived in fear of his abusive father. He shapes Cory’s childhood in the same way. At the end of the play, however, Raynell seems to have a different childhood without fear and abuse.

“But…you born with two strikes on you before you come to the plate.” 

Troy points out that lives are fragile and one fatal mistake or accident can take everything away. He is saying that he knew what he was risking when he started the affair with Alberta. Troy did it because he felt like he had to take the opportunity to seize excitement and happiness in life. 

“I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams…and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn’t take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom.” 

When Rose met Troy, she believed that he was someone she could love and grow with. Although she discovered soon after that he was not the kind of man who would allow her to grow, Rose sacrificed herself and her life because she’d committed to him. Rose ultimately realizes that she was wrong to give herself up to a man who would never let her blossom. Rose still tries to hang on to Troy and their life together, for better or for worse, even as Troy cruelly sees Alberta out in the open. Once Alberta dies, Rose realizes that she must cut off Troy to find herself again and that it’s never too late to grow.

“What you smiling at? Your daddy’s a big man. Got these great big old hands. But sometimes he’s scared ’cause we sitting out here and ain’t got no home.” 

Troy is addressing newborn Raynell, but he speaks loudly enough for Rose to hear. Although he has an ulterior motive, Troy is showing vulnerability as he speaks to his newborn daughter. What Rose understands from this interaction is not that Troy deserves forgiveness or a second chance. She realizes that Raynell needs a mother because she should not be raised by Troy alone. Perhaps Troy would have had a different life if he had had a mother who loved him.

“I ain’t got to say excuse me to you. You don’t count around here no more.” 

Cory has been afraid of his father his entire life. After Troy ruins his opportunity with the football recruiter, Cory begins to openly resent him. By denouncing Troy as her husband, Rose has given Cory tacit permission to dismiss Troy and his authority. Troy does not accept this dismissal and instead attacks Cory. 

“Yeah, he remind me of Troy when I first met him.” 

Bono is attempting to pay Cory a compliment because young Troy was handsome, charming, and full of possibilities, but Cory is terrified of becoming his father. What Rose helps him to understand is that Cory does take after his father, but he is still young and full of potential, and it is Cory’s job to make his own way in life with what he was given and where he comes from.

“Disrespecting your daddy ain’t gonna make you a man, Cory.” 

Rose’s statement contradicts Troy’s entire parenting philosophy in raising his son and the way Cory’s last interaction with his father shaped his life. Troy believed that he earned his manhood the day he fought his father but doesn’t realize that he was just a scared child who was trying to make it in the world. Cory can only be a man by becoming his own man, letting his father rest, and moving on with his life. As long as Troy haunts him, Cory can never get out of his shadow and be an adult.