Fences explores how racial tensions in society had an effect on an average African family in Pittsburgh. Troys’ past failure in his baseball career becomes the foundation behind his perception that his race was the reason for his failure. Due to this event he takes it out mostly on his son, Cory, cutting his hopes and dreams down primarily because he feels that his son will receive the same fate he did when he was his age. Fences also has a symbolic meaning behind it that can be linked to the two primary characters, Troy and Rose. Rose believes her family is slowly breaking apart so she feels if Troy and Cory work on building the fence then it will mend their relationship enough to hold on to. In scene II it opens with Rose singing, “Jesus, be a fence all around me every day” (Wilson 1117) which symbolizes that she her fence is made for protection. Her fence is made to keep her family safe and near her. Bono makes a comment to Troy when he questions why Rose would want a fence anyways and he basically tells Troy that, “some people build fences to keep people out…and other people build fences to keep people in (Wilson 1141).” Troy and Cory didn’t understand at first because they were too busy defying one another. All Rose did was love them and wanted the best for Cory and for Troy to drop his …show more content…
Troy right away mentions that Corys’ things will “be on the other side of that fence” (Wilson 1157) already illustrating that Cory is no longer anything to him and he is now just a person he is trying to keep out of his territory. Troy also keeps his alternate love life outside of the fence, proving that he himself must step out of his own boundaries and become his own type of enemy. His relationship with Alberta caused Rose a lot of pain but she did eventually overcome her obstacle and accepted the baby as her