Fences--Generations: Tools and Dreams
In Troy's MONOLOGUE (speech) to Cory, the audience views the tension between the tools Troy hopes to instill and the dreams Cory wants to pursue. Troy stresses the value of responsibility and hard work as tools with which to craft a secure future. Cory wants Troy to recognize his dreams. In this week's discussion board you'll look at these subjects, TOOLS you may have been provided or offered by your predecessors along with DREAMS, both realized and forgotten.
Discussion Board Assignment: Tools
In an interview with August Wilson in 1987, David Savran commented: “We see that Troy has been crippled by his father. That’s being replayed in Troy’s relationships with Cory. Do you think there’s a way out of that cycle?”
Wilson responded: “Surely. First of all, we’re all like our parents. The things we are taught early in life, how to respond to the world, our sense of morality--everything we get from them. Now you can take that legacy and do with it anything you want. It’s in your hands. Cory is Troy’s son. How can he be Troy’s son without sharing Troy’s values? I was trying to get at why Troy made the choices he made, how they have influenced his values and how he attempts to pass those along to his son.
Each generation gives the succeeding generation what they think they need. One question in the play is, “Are the tools we are given sufficient to compete in a world that is different from the ones our parents knew?” I think they are--it's just that we have to do different things with the tools. That’s all Troy has to give. Troy’s flaw is that he does not recognize that the world was changing. That’s because he spent fifteen years in a penitentiary.”Bryer, Jackson Robert., and Mary C. Hartig, editors. “August Wilson.” Conversations with August Wilson, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 2006, p. 30.
Explain what you think Wilson means in the part of the quotation italicized above. Do you agree with him? Why or why not—provide examples. Respond to two students. Copy and paste your discussion board post and replies onto your assignment sheet.
NEXT: Lesson 1 Writing Part 2
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