Fences Review

Navid Tajkhorshid

Given the current situation, I had very few books from the library that I hadn’t read. Looking through the books I did have, I noticed Fences by August Wilson sitting on the shelf. Since our plans to read this play in class were scrapped, I decided to give it a shot. It is only 100 pages, which is even shorter than you would think because it is written in a script format. I don’t have that much to say about this book, given the size of the story, so let’s get into the review.

My expectations of the experience I would get while reading this book were not very high. That is not to say that it is not a good play, but I thought it would have been way too limited for me to get any serious enjoyment out of it. While books have settings, side plots, and, most importantly, time, plays are entirely based on the characters in it. A large part of what makes a play good is the personalities of the actors and actresses who play the characters, which you just do not get in a script. I have never seen a play or musical that I have been able to call nuanced or deep, as the acting is the main reason people like them. All or these factors lowered my expectations for this book, which made it all the more impressive when it seemed to address nearly every one of my concerns.

The story mostly follows Troy Maxon, an African - American man who is strict, kind, loving, but ultimately flawed. He was used to the America of the 1950s, and believes that it is impossible for a black man to make it to the higher classes of work and income, so when his son, Cory, gets a scholarship to play football and wants to quit his job at an A&P, he tries to squander his son’s hope, in his mind, sooner rather than later. This old feeling that the world is against him, while still partially valid during the time period, is the root of all of Troy’s misconceptions, flaws, and mistakes.

Remember how I said the time constraints of a play made it nearly impossible to be nuanced? Well, Wilson saw this problem and took a simple approach: extreme focus. There is one setting in this play, the porch of Troy’s house. For most of the play, there are at most four people in the yard, and each of the characters are given ample time to feel real, even without an actor to bring flair. <SPOILER> I think the best way to illustrate this is to look at when Troy drops the bomb to his wife Rose, that he is going to have a child with another woman. Up until this point, Troy was shown to really care about Rose and his family, but the author made sure we knew that he did ont like most of his life, and that he wanted an escape. This, combined with the aforementioned fact that he felt like the world was against him, makes it believable that he would do this. </SPOILER> The fact that I was able to like Troy while grasping these nuances and flaws of his character is a testament to how fleshed out he is.

The one thing that was a little annoying about the story was the characters constantly explaining their motives, and this is a very hard problem to solve when it comes to the performing arts. Musicals cover this up with a song, but here, it is a little explicit. I do not know how to solve this problem while still having the audience understand this, and this is par for the course when reading scripts. However, with this compromise, the emotion of the characters comes through, even in the script. Since we have had the goals of the characters shoved down our throats, we can fully empathize with them when they clash or fail. Baseball is a common symbol in this play, and when Troy laments on his mistakes, saying “I struck out,” you can almost hear his raw sadness.

Overall, Fences is a fun and quick read that manages to make you feel surprisingly emotional for its size. Normally, I would just give a recommendation for this book and leave it at that, but since everyone (in 2nd and 8th period, anyway) reading this already has a copy of Fences, I am asking you to read it. You can breeze through it in one sitting if you like, or take your time and think deeply about it. Just give it a chance.