for his lack of success and does not want his youngest son,Cory, to experience the same challenges.

Troy prohibits Cory from accepting a football scholarship and demands that he continue working at the local A&P supermarket. Cory believes that his father is preventing him from succeeding in sports out of spite and resents him. Although Cory admits that he only wanted to be like his father growing up, he struggles to forgive Troy for ruining his chances of playing football in college.

Troy's relationship with Lyons is also hostile and complex. Troy does not approve of Lyons's lifestyle and criticizes him for continually asking to borrow money. Troy is dismissive of Lyons and will not even watch his band play.

Despite Troy's negative, hostile attitude towards Cory and Lyons, Troy genuinely aims to make them better men than he was. Troy provides for Cory and takes care of Lyons, which is similar to how Troy's father raised him. Troy also believes that he is doing Cory a favor by forcing him to focus on work rather than invest his energy and time into sports, where black men have a difficult time succeeding.

Troy also hopes to instill responsibility in Lyons, who seems like a shiftless wanderer. Tragically, Troy is unable to accept that the world is rapidly changing and cannot see that Cory's athletic scholarship will benefit him. By refusing to listen to Lyons's band, Troy also loses out on an opportunity to connect with his son and improve their relationship. Despite his failures, Troy's sons attend his funeral as a gesture of their forgiveness.

While it is clear that Troy Maxson loves his sons, Cory and Lyons, his relationship with both of his sons is characterized by bitterness and misunderstanding. Lyons, his son from his first marriage, wants to be a musician and is far less realistic and practical than his father, who offers Lyons help to get a job on a garbage truck. Lyons feels that he does not want to be carrying other people's garbage or punching a clock, while his father will do what he needs to do to support his family. Lyons is bitter towards his father because Troy was not around when he was growing up, and he accepts Troy's money but declines his advice.

Troy's relationship with his other son, Cory, is also characterized by misunderstanding. Cory hopes to play college football, but Troy feels that white teams will never accept an African-American player, as he was not allowed to play white baseball when he was growing up. Cory wants to be part of a new generation that is beginning to integrate, but Troy does not want him to play football because he thinks it will be setting up Cory for failure and rejection. Troy winds up throwing Cory out of his house. As Troy has suffered from the effects of racism growing up, he wants his sons to play it safe. He loves them, but his way of showing love is to be hard on them. As a result, he is distanced from them and does not understand their dreams.

The relationship between Troy and Cory Maxson is bitter and tense. Troy's hostile attitude stems from his past. He blames racism for keeping him from attaining his dream of playing major league baseball, and he can't let go of this resentment. The pain Troy feels from his past doesn't allow him to let his family get close because he has built a fence of anger and misery around himself. This fence protects Troy from being hurt any further, but it also robs him of his family's love. When Cory has the chance to get a college football scholarship, Troy denies his son the opportunity to achieve what he couldn't. Cory cannot forgive his father for it. Troy is both jealous and protective of Cory. He's afraid Cory will achieve what was denied to him, but he also wants to spare Cory from the racism that Troy faced. Cory finally leaves home when he and his father end up in a physical fight. Cory knows he can never please his father, and his feelings for Troy have turned to hatred.

Troy has another son, Lyons, by a former marriage, but he treats Lyons the same as he does Cory. He is indifferent and uncaring to Lyons as well. Lyons turns out to be much like Troy, ending up in jail just like his father.

In the end, Cory shows up for Troy's funeral, but Cory is still not sure how he feels about his father. The fence Troy built around himself will affect Cory forever, but we can hope Cory is a better father to his child

In truth, it seems to me that Troy in August Wilson's play, Fences, is trying to motivate his son to reach for the American Dream, something he was not able to do. In essence, Troy is doing what many parents have done for thousands of years: wanting to see a child or children provided for, and wanting the child to have a better life than the parent had.

Troy works as a garbage man. We learn early on that he is not even allowed to drive a truck (and make more money) because he is black. Troy's relationship with Lyons (his son from a previous marriage) is dysfunctional. Lyons comes to borrow money and Troy tells him he should get a job. Lyons blows Troy off saying that since Troy wasn't a part of the boy's life growing up, he has no right to scold him. (Ironically, it seems Troy has enough parental rights to be asked for a loan…)

Perhaps Troy's relationship with Lyons is another thing that drives Troy to try to make Cory's chances for success better. He wants to be involved with his son's life so that he doesn't end up like Lyons, begging for money, and unemployed.

The father-son relationship seems typical to me: the son can only know what his limited experiences have shown him. He likes football and has no time to think of the future or to consider that he might have difficulty like his father. His father's experiences are meaningless to Cory because Cory is too young and naive to know that he should pay attention to his father's advice. Troy has lived a hard life, including fifteen years in prison and a life that seems to run from pay check to pay check, weekend to weekend. He cares for his son and wants what is best for him. Even wanting to be an athlete himself, Troy has found with age that football won't count in helping Cory have a better life than Troy. This is all he can see.

Perspective is everything, and the father and son in the play are in different places. Someday they might better understand each other, but for now, they struggle because each one's perspective only encompasses how each sees the world at that moment, and their views are very different.

Though the father-son relationship between Troy and Cory is the most important one in the play, it's also important to examine the relationship between Lyons and Troy.

Lyons is the product of Troy's first marriage. He is thirty-four years old. When he is introduced into the play, he is entering the Maxson home from the yard. He is well dressed and has the idea of himself as a musician, though he doesn't actually practice music. He knows that he will be successful, but he worries about possible judgment toward his lifestyle, particularly given his frequent need to borrow money from his father due to not having regular and stable work.

Lyon's greeting to his father, "Hey, Pop," is met with skepticism by Troy due to his awareness that his eldest son will ask him for money. From this exchange, Wilson establishes with the audience a sense that this, too, is a tense father-son relationship. Unlike his relationship with Cory—which is the result of his fear that his youngest son will surpass him in life by becoming the athlete that he wanted to become—Troy's relationship with Lyons is marked by Troy's belief in his own relative superiority. He has this sense of superiority because he is willing to live according to social dictates which say that a man must have a regular job.

Though Lyons's wife, Bonnie, works in the laundry room of a hospital, Lyons cannot bring himself to take on a job that will give him just enough to eat. He insists that he needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning, something that makes him want to live. Lyons differs from Troy in that he lives according to his desires, not according to any sense of obligation. He knows that others, particularly his father, judge him, but he refuses to accept society's refusal to allow a black man to live to his heart's content. Troy is a defeated man, while Lyons insists on maintaining some pride and hope of happiness. As a result, he refuses his father's offer to get him a job hauling trash, because he doesn't want to carry anyone's rubbish or punch a time clock.

Troy resents what he perceives as his son's aversion to regular hard work, as well as his willingness to take money from him. Lyons takes the money, and thinks that the money is due to him, because his father abandoned him and his mother when he was growing up. Thus, Lyons's relationship with Troy is also marked by a feeling that his father is feigning moral superiority and paternal authority, though he hasn't earned either right.

I think that the father/ son theme is an important one in Wilson's drama.  There are many different issues that are raised in the drama, external ones that are internalized.  Race, class, and gender issues are a part of this.  Another one is the psychological resonance of how parents treat children and the scars that remain as a result of this. Troy's own experience with his own father causes him to be limited in how he can care for his son, Cory.  Troy understands the neglect and abuse his father heaped upon him was bad and that this did irreparable damage to their own relationship.  While Troy wishes to avoid this with Cory, he is unable to fully transcend these wounds.  The only way in which Troy can show parenting is through violence and force.  At the same time, Bono understands this, something he terms "walking blues."  He recognizes that the sins that the previous generation visited upon the children was something to be avoided in this generation.   It is for this reason that Bono recognizes what was done in the past and does not seek to replicate it in the future.  In both men, Wilson presents a compelling portrait of how the past impacts the present and the future.  This is one in which individuals must acknowledge and understand the role of the past in how they choose to be impacted by it in the future.  The psychological impact caused by the child and parent relationship is a part of this configuration.