n the sixties is by no means to the level of slaver, but the same ideas involving racial injustice and separation are present. The main character in Fences, Troy, didn’t seem to be effected by the events of the present, but the problems he encountered in the past. Troy’s being restricted from playing baseball at a professional level adversely effected the way he acted as a father and his thoughts regarding life. Since Troy was kept away from playing baseball at a professional level, he too began to build his own fences. He became so caught up in his own thoughts that he was unable to connect with his own family. When his son Cory was trying to talk to him about baseball one day he quickly responded with, "I ain’t thinking about the Pirates. Got an all-white team. Got that boy…that Puerto Rican boy…Clemente. Don’t even half-play him" (Wilson 33). Troy is so bitter about how he never got the chance to be a professional he doesn’t recognize that his son is just trying to connect with him and talk. He believes so highly in the idea that all minorities are suppressed in sports and life that he has built a fence between him and his family, thus becoming isolated. This emotional fence was soon supplemented with a physical fence that went between Troy and Cory in the story after an argument they had with each other. Cory said that he would return to pick up his belongings and Troy responded with, "They’ll be on the other side of the that fence" (89). This is a continuing of Troy’s isolation that he brought upon himself. First he simply couldn’t relate to his son, then he finally put him out of the house physically and told him to leave. By putting Cory’s things on the other side of the fence it was like Troy saying you don’t believe in what I do, so you are no longer in my world. All of this could have been avoided if Troy was a little more open minded, but he felt very str...
