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Carl Mason
Mason
LIT-204-B1
10 August 2012
Go Down Swinging:
Troy Maxson as Life Force in August Wilson’s Fences
Troy Maxson, the protagonist of August Wilson’s Fences, is a man of contradictions. He
preaches responsibility to his son Cory, but is unfaithful to his Rose, his wife of 18 years. He
boasts that his hard work as a garbage man puts food on the table, but uses his brother’s
disability settlement to purchase his home. He tells Lyons, his son from a previous marriage, one
must take “the crooked with the straights” (1162), but consistently denies the realities of a
rapidly changing world – everything from the integration of major league baseball to the first
rumblings of the coming Civil Rights era. Yet whether we see this character as defiant or
stubborn, Troy is consistent in one aspect. His role as a life force is unwavering.
Troy’s vitality is communicated through his imposing physical presence on stage and his
resonant voice. But Troy’s ongoing fight against death is central to his vitality. A prime example
of this is his willingness to defy death repeatedly during the play. In the opening scene, he tells
of wrestling with death. Later, he will stare death down from a makeshift batter’s box in his back
yard. His defiance of death speaks not to a fear of death, but an embrace of life. Howard Shapiro
argues in Obit Magazine that “all the wrestling we do along the way […] makes life full. It
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defines our failures and our triumphs. And, for each of us, our meaning.” He may ultimately
strike out, but Troy Maxson will never stop swinging.
New York Times theater critic Frank Rich calls Troy a “life force that at once nurtures and
stunts the characters who share his blood.” Rich refers specifically to Rose, a woman who “never
bloomed […] marriage brought frustration and betrayal in equal measure with affection.” The
betrayal in question would be Troy’s illicit affair with Alberta, an affair that results in the birth of
his daughter, Raynell. Kim Pereira, Theater Professor at the College of Fine Arts at Illinois State
University, echoes this claim when he states, “[I]f a hero is one who goes into battle that he may
or may not win, Troy Maxson possesses, in full measure, [that] warrior spirit” (qtd. in Koprince).
In the opening scene, Troy entertains his wife and his friend Bono with his tale of
wrestling with “Mr. Death” (1112). His defiance is both vocal and physical. Troy declares, “I
ain’t worried about death. I done seen him” (1112). He challenges death with a direct question,
stating, “What you want, Mr. Death? You be wanting me?” (1112). According to Troy, he threw
death’s sickle as far as he could before he wrestled with for “three days and three nights” (1112).
Death relents, but warns Troy, “I’ll be back” (1112). Troy understands the ultimate necessity of
death, but his defince is reflected in his statement, “I know he’s gonna get me […] But as long as
I keep up my vigilance […] he’s gonna have to fight to get me. I ain’t going easy” (1113).
Depending on the production, this scene could be performed any number of ways, from
comic to serious; however, two matters are clear. First, we are aware of Troy’s readiness to
confront death. The irony here is that Troy refuses to engage with events in his life. For all his
strength and resolve, Troy’s stubbornness destroys the very things that make life meaningful. He
loses the love of his wife and ultimately control over his son. Second, Troy affirms that the
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qualities of “vigilance” and “strength” are necessary to not simply avoid death, but confront
death on its terms, not Troy’s. As much as Troy tries to establish his dominance at home, he
understands who has ultimate sway in this world.
A second instance of Troy’s confronting death occurs later in the play. Unlike the
opening scene, the possibility for comic relief here is unlikely. Confronted about his extramarital
affair, Troy loses the physical love of Rose, the woman had provided Troy with stability, or as
Rich states, the woman who “as she says, ‘planted herself’ in the ‘hard and rocky soil’ of her
husband.” Troy declares that he will complete the fence if only to keep death out. But he insists
that this “is between you and me” (1150). Death is welcome to knock on the front door, “anytime
you want. I’ll be ready for you” (1150). The irony here is that when death arrives, it approaches
anyway it sees fit. Like the people in Troy’s life, death will not bend to his demands.
The third, and final, instance of Troy challenging death is perhaps the most powerful.
After his final drunken confrontation with Cory, Wilson’s stage direction states that Troy
“assumes a batting posture and begins to taunt Death,” which Wilson here defines as a “fastball
on the outside corner”(1157). Troy declares, “I can’t taste nothing. Halluljiah!” (1157).
signifying that he is clear of Earthly concerns and is prepared for death. Again, Troy remains
defiant. “Come on! I’ll be ready for you . . .but I ain’t gonna be easy” (1157). Through this
defiance, on one level, Troy understands that he has made a muddle of his life, but he does not
surrender. And he will not strike out looking. In fact, it is no accident that Troy’s final act in the
play (told in retrospect) is of his swinging at a ball in the backyard.
The life force is central to many works of literature, but my purposes I have chosen
Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Thomas, a Welsh poet who wrote the
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poem for his father David John Thomas, who died in 1952. The poem, a villanelle, is clearly
autobiographical as Thomas implores his father to “rage against the dying of the light.”
Ironically, Thomas would himself die the following year, succumbing to the effects of acute
alcoholism. Thomas famously stated, "An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as
much as you do" (Brinnin 97) but the role of alcohol in his death was very real. During his brief
life – he was only 39 when he died – Thomas was considered to be a charming, vibrant, and
dynamic force in 20th century poetry. Thomas took America by storm in the early 50s, as few
poets have done before, or since. This may explain why this poem, his most famous and most
accessible, is often associated with him.
I would argue that the life force evident in the poem is located in Troy Maxson. We see
how “[o]ld age should burn and rave at close of day” when Troy grasps his bat in his backyard
and dares death to bring his best stuff to the plate. As we have witnessed in the opening scene
Troy, while not necessarily a “wise” man, understands that in the end “dark is right.” He too
understands that his words of defiance to Cory, “Hank Aaron ain’t nobody” and “I ain’t thinking
of no Sandy Kofax,” denies the reality of integration in the Major Leagues (1124). One could
argue that by the end of the play, Troy understands that change, at least under his own roof, is
inevitable. He must reluctantly accept that his “words had forked no lightning.” No matter what
he says, the world changes with or without him. Troy’s “crying how bright / [His] frail deeds
might have danced in a green bay” evokes his memory of not only staring down the great Satchel
Paige, but hitting “seven home runs” (1138). But because Troy was born too early to participate
in the integration of the Majors, his home runs, where he “caught and sang the sun in flight,” he
understands that he also “grieved it on its way.” And as the one of the “[g]rave men, near death,
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who see with blinding sight,” Troy digs in one last time in the batter’s box to face death’s long
slow curve.
In the end, during the scene of Troy’s funeral we understand that Troy is indeed “there on
the sad height.” as his legacy or memory hovers over his family. Troy’s legacy is complex.
Shapiro states that “you can’t consider Fences without seeing death and, eventually, the very
thing that makes it possible, life.” Death, shunted offstage by most us, ultimately gives life its
immediacy and purpose. We understand that it’s winding up on the hill and setting up to deliver
that “fast ball on the outside corner”(1157). Yet Troy’s death allows us to grasp the significance
of his life. Troy was unwavering and often cruel in his treatment of Cory – going so far as to
sabotage his son’s hope of a college football scholarship – but in the end, his son matures into a
responsible adult who finds forgiveness for his father. Shapriro adds, “Change defines living and
death is a profound part of change.” He elaborates by adding, “the play’s triumph comes in its
message that any irretrievable loss becomes its own death.” This is the final irony of Fences.
Troy stubbornly fights off the obvious change that death embodies, but his actions bring
destruction to the things that define and give meaning to life. In our lives, change is a form of
death, but change brings with it the promise of rebirth, and rebirth signals hope. In Fences, hope
is embodied by Raynell, Troy’s seven-year-old daughter who plants a garden in Troy’s back
yard. The play ends in the year 1965, the year Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights
Act into law. In the end change signals a belated triumph for Troy. He has prevailed over the
abusive memory of his father. His son has grown into a mature man who finds forgiveness and
his daughter represents the hopeful future of African-Americans. During his lifetime his “frame
of reference [was] as cramped as the batter’s box he imagine[d] himself in, alone, facing down
death” (O’Reilly). But his legacy is far reaching, further than any center field porch.
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Works Cited
Brinnin, John Malcolm. Dylan Thomas in America. New York: Viking, 1957
Koprince, Susan. “Baseball as History and Myth in August Wilson’s Fences.” African American
Review 40.2 (2009). Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 May 2012.
O’Reilly, Mollie Wilson. “Fertile Ground: August Wilson’s Fences.” Commonweal. 137.11
(2010) Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 May 2012.
Rich, Frank. “Family Ties in Wilson’s Fences.” New York Times. 27 Mar. 1987. Web. 9 May
2012.
Shapiro, Howard. “Wrestling With Death” Obit Magazine. 10 May 2010. Web. 9 May 2012.
Thomas, Dylan. “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Literature: A Portable Anthology.
2nd ed. Ed. Janet E. Gardner et.al. New York: Bedford, 2009. 591. Print.
Wilson, August. “Fences.” Literature: A Portable Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Janet E. Gardner et.al.
New York: Bedford, 2009. 1105-1163. Print.