Tragically Troy had capabilities but he didn’t utilize them for his family or for the black society as a whole. In every instant Troy’s choices are self serving he felt that as long as he was the breadwinner that’s all he had to do. Troy is selfish and he only stands up for something if it personally benefits him, otherwise he doesn’t care about anyone or anything. He feels his only responsibility is to be the breadwinner of his household.
At any moment anyone can make good or bad decisions and he can’t allow others to Every choice that troy makes for a selfish purpose it’s never the gain of others. Self serving Troy Maxson is the main character in August Wilson’s play “Fences,” throughout the play Troy creates small and large problems for everyone else within the play. I feel that some of the conflicts he has are in result of his upbringing, the environment and historical events in which he lived through, but on the other hand a lot just has to do with him being selfish and only carrying about himself.
The play’s setting takes place around the time of the American civil rights movement, and Troy is a older African American man but he’s not trying to fight for black rights on the contrary he is selfish, and only focuses on what he wants and needs disregarding the outcomes and feeling of his family, friends and other black Americans in his environment. The setting of “Fences” is in the yard of the Troy Maxson’s home during the late 1950’s and 1960’s.
Troy lives in the poorer part of Pittsburg Pennsylvania which is located in the northeast part of the United States. He moved there from the south like many other black men of his time, but Troy was running away from his father and his past, trying to live a different life than is ancestors. When the play begins Troy is in his 50’s and has had many trials and tribulations within his own life, he has also lived through many dramatic changes in the history of the world and the culture of a black man in
America. Troy left home as a young man after a traumatic event with his father. Troy was supposed to be watching a mule but it wandered off and his father noticed so went looking for Troy. His father found him with a girl that troy liked, his father then beat him with leather reins and raped the girl. Until, that moment Troy feared his father but after that traumatic event he felt that he became a man. Troy left his father the unsuccessful sharecropper and the south to go out on his own.
