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When was Troy Maxson born?

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Troy Maxson was born in 1904, as indicated by August Wilson in the stage directions of Fences, which is set in 1957 when Troy is 53 years old. His birth year is significant within the play, highlighting how racial barriers affected his opportunities, such as being too old to play in the Major Leagues when they were integrated in 1947, despite his talent.

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To add to the character's historical context, the Pittsburgh to which Troy belongs was born out of both the Great Migration and the wave of immigration, particularly from Eastern Europe, in the early part of the twentieth century. In the play's exposition, Wilson explains how Pittsburgh resulted mainly from a wave of European immigrants who were welcomed and provided with the opportunities that integrated them into American life:

Near the turn of the century, the destitute of Europe sprang on the city with tenacious claws and an honest and solid dream. The city devoured them. They swelled its belly until it burst with a thousand furnaces and sewing machines, a thousand butcher shops and bakers' ovens, a thousand churches and hospitals and funeral parlors and moneylenders. The city grew. It nourished itself and offered each man a partnership limited only by his talent, his guile, and his willingness and...

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capacity for hard work. For the immigrants of Europe, a dream dared won and true.

Wilson depicts the immigrants' hunger for opportunity and how willingly the nation fed that hunger. Wilson then contrasts this American Dream, which brought prosperity to thousands of new arrivals, with how black people from the South were effectively shut out of such opportunities:

The descendants of Africans were offered no such welcome or participation [...]. They came strong, eager, searching. The city rejected them and they fled and settled along riverbanks and under bridges in shallow, ramshackle houses made of sticks and tar-paper [...]. They sold the use of their muscles and their bodies. They cleaned houses and washed clothes, they shined shoes, and in quiet desperation and vengeful pride, they stole, and lived in pursuit of their own dream. That they could breathe free, finally, and stand to meet life with the force of dignity and whatever eloquence the heart could call upon.

The conditions of black people changed very little from what they endured in the South. They still suffered from chronic poverty, subjugation, and an inability to escape life in the servant class, while white immigrants were given opportunities for upward mobility. This inability to move beyond one's station and to create for oneself the life one deserves is a theme within the play. All of the characters, particularly Troy and Lyons, live within frustrated circumstances beyond their control. These conditions are a direct result of Troy living during a time in which the only choice for black people was survival or death, which is no choice really.

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According to the playwright August Wilson, Fences is set in 1957, and he identifies Troy's age as 53 in the stage directions for Act 1, scene 1. Therefore, this fictional protagonist would have been born in 1904. Your answer is correct! Troy's age is significant because it makes him too old to have been able to play baseball in the Major Leagues, which were integrated by Jackie Robinson in 1947. Troy, however, contends that he could have played, that he was and still is good enough to play---only his race has kept him from playing. Even Rose points out that he was too old at the time the Major League was integrated because he would have been 43 at that time.

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