Student Question

What is the genre of the play "Fences"?

Expert Answers

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August Wilson's play Fences is a drama, or more specifically, a family drama. We know this work is a play because there are stage directions and characters speaking dialogue.

The play is about an African-American family and is set in 1957. The main character, Troy Maxson, has a very strong personality and is very demanding of his son, Cory. Troy's behavior is influenced by disappointments in his own life. We can see in the play how Troy takes out his own frustrations on his family. Troy's wife Rose stands by him but also becomes frustrated when she feels like their marriage and family are not satisfying to Troy. All of these details create tension between the characters and initiate the central conflicts of the drama. Later, we learn that Troy has had an affair and his mistress is pregnant. That daughter, Raynell, becomes part of the family, and Troy passes away by the end of the play. We are left to consider how the family will now interact without the influence of its patriarch.

The drama also engages with issues of racial discrimination via the limited opportunities Troy has in his life due to his being an African-American man. So in addition to being a family drama, the play has a sociopolitical context. It is also a work of realism because it portrays the all-too-real struggles of African Americans in the United States between abolition and the Civil Rights era.

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