In , he became his city's first black garbage truck driver, having worked as a can lifter for several years beforehand. However, his family became estranged from him due to his infidelity, his alcoholism, and his bitterness, and he died of a heart attack in Troy Maxson was born in Alabama in , and he grew up in a working-class African-American family of eleven children; his mother left the home when Troy was seven.
Troy left home at age 14 after beating up his abusive sharecropper father who had beaten Troy and raped his thirteen-year-old girlfriend as Troy and the girl made love by the riverbank , and he walked miles to Mobile in search of work; his only family member who he would keep in touch with was his brother Gabriel Maxson , who later moved in with the family after he was left mentally impaired due to World War II wounds.
Unfortunately, there were no jobs or houses available to blacks in the segregated city of Mobile, so Maxson became a robber to sustain himself. He got married and had a son, Lyons Maxson , but, as he had more mouths to feed, he had to rob even more people. During one robbery, he accidentally killed a man with a knife after the man shot him, and he served in prison for fifteen years, where he met his friend Jim Bono.
Troy's character creates the large and small conflicts with everyone else in Fences. Troy instigates conflict as a result of his ability to believe in self-created illusions and his inability to accept other's choices in life when they differ from Troy's own philosophy.
Rose often contradicts his stories about himself and versions of what happened in the past. Troy also aggressively disagrees with Lyons' decision to be a musician and Cory's decision to play football in college, as well as Rose's habit of playing the numbers.
Troy's last name, Maxson, is an amalgamation of Mason and Dixon, after the Mason-Dixon line, the name for the imaginary line that separated the slave states from the free states. Troy's name symbolically demonstrates Troy's character as one who lives on a line between two opposing ideas.
Troy's history is equal parts southern and northern, half-full of hope and half-filled with disappointment. Our question is: how does Troy manage to play on the same team as these guys? For one thing, like every tragic hero, Troy has a clear-cut case of hamartia. This word is commonly translated from the Greek as "tragic flaw"; however, a more direct translation is "missing of the mark. Though he used be able to knock a baseball out of the park like it was nothing, he constantly "misses the mark" in his personal life.
Like most tragic heroes, Troy does whatever he thinks is right. Even though the people around him warn him that the things he's doing may have tragic consequences, he stubbornly pursues his own course of action. Troy's relationship with his son Cory is good example of how he misses the mark. Cory is overjoyed because he's been selected for a college football scholarship.
Like his father, Cory loves sports, and this is his one chance to go to college. Troy, however, is dead-set against Cory going off to play football. One of the greatest sources of disappointment in Troy's life is the fact that he wasn't allowed to play pro baseball. Troy refuses to let his son play football, claiming that he doesn't want Cory to suffer from the same sort of heartache.
Their activity in the numbers game represents Rose and Lyons' belief in gambling for a better future. Lyons' jazz playing appears to Troy as an unconventional and foolish occupation. Troy calls jazz, "Chinese music," because he perceives the music as foreign and impractical.
Lyons' humanity and belief in himself garners respect from others. Troy's illegitimate child, mothered by Alberta, his lover. August Wilson introduces Raynell to the play as an infant. Her innocent need for care and support convinces Rose to take Troy back into the house. Later, Raynell plants seeds in the once barren dirt yard. Raynell is the only Maxson child that will live with few scars from Troy and is emblematic of new hope for the future and the positive values parents and older generations pass on to their young.
Troy's buxom lover from Tallahassee and Raynell's mother. Alberta dies while giving birth. She symbolizes the exotic dream of Troy's to escape his real life problems and live in an illusion with no time. Cory's high school football coach who encourages recruiters to come to see Cory play football.
Bono and Troy's boss at the Sanitation Department who doubted that Troy would win his discrimination case. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook.
Themes Motifs Symbols. Mini Essays Suggested Essay Topics. Characters Character List. Troy Maxson The protagonist of Fences, a fifty-three year-old, African American man who works for the sanitation department, lifting garbage into trucks.
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