The family is free of Troy, but Cory learns that his father is a part of him that he can never escape. Cory returns home, now a colonel in the Marines, and meets his half-sister for the first time since she was an infant. The final scene takes place in 1965 on the day of Troy’s funeral. Cory finally challenges his father, and the violent confrontation ends with Cory leaving home. Troy refuses to speak to the recruiter or allow Cory to play football, so Cory graduates from high school with bleak prospects and no chance to go to college. Troy’s mistress dies in childbirth and leaves Troy to raise their daughter with a wife who is devastated by Troy’s betrayal. Additionally, Troy commits Gabriel to a hospital, something he has been resisting for years. Gabriel believes wholeheartedly that he is the angel Gabriel, carrying a trumpet that he expects to need one day.ĭissatisfied with his settled life, Troy begins an affair with a woman whom he eventually impregnates. Troy feels like a failure because at 53, he was only able to afford a house because his brother, Gabriel, received money after he was injured and brain-damaged fighting in World War II. Troy’s wife, Rose, informs Troy that their son, Cory, has caught the eye of a college football recruiter, but Troy is adamant that his son will not endure the same heartbreak that he did by attempting to play professional sports. He has just recently caused a stir at work by asking why Black men are not allowed to drive the trucks and filing a complaint with the union.
When the play opens in 1957, Troy is 53 years old and working as a garbage collector. Troy fathered his first son, Lyons, and then spent 15 years in prison after a killing someone during a robbery. He left home when he was 14 after a confrontation with his abusive father.
Troy Maxson was once a great player in the Negro baseball leagues, but he was not allowed to join the major leagues because he was Black. Discrimination was still legal in employment and housing, and schools in Black areas were much less funded than White schools, making it very difficult for African Americans to receive a proper education and escape poverty. The Civil Rights Act was signed into law in 1957, making it federally illegal to suppress voter rights, but for African Americans, opportunities for advancement remained scarce. Rosa Parks’ protest and the lynching of Emmett Till occurred in 1955. Eisenhower sent federal troops to accompany them. Schools had only been legally desegregated since 1955, and in 1957, the Little Rock Nine were not allowed to integrate into a White school until President Dwight D. Fences is set in 1957, 10 years after Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play Major League Baseball and in the midst of the civil rights movement in the United States.
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