ARCHETYPES, UNIVERSAL THEMES Example Response from Fences

Passage from Fences

TROY (to ROSE) : I don’t want him to be like me! I want him to move as far away from my life as he can get. You the only decent thing that ever happened to me. I wish him that. But I don’t wish him a thing else from my life. I decided seventeen years ago that boy wasn’t getting involved in no sports. Not after what they did to me in the sports (page 38).

ARCHETYPE or UNIVERSAL THEME

Coming of Age -- We all have fathers and mothers…they are universal experiences, realities, characters. We may not all be a mother or father in our lives, but we have to have both. NOW, the devotion these parents show us, the connections we have with them, and our relationship with them as we mature all differ with individual experience.

Commentary

Cory’s experience with his father reaches a climactic moment with the visit of the college football coach looming. From what we’ve seen of Cory, he respects his father, perhaps for his father’s strength, hard work, former athletic prowess, and his stories. Cory works hard, is respectful, and tries to communicate with his father. However, Troy is willing to destroy Cory’s chance to earn a college football scholarship, go to college, and perhaps, against all odds, play professionally. Why would Troy not encourage and support Cory?

Well, look at Troy’s experiences. When Troy was a young man coming into his own, what social forces greeted him? Did professional sports provide Troy with opportunity? Troy looks back at his experience with sports bitterly, and does little to encourage Cory’s continued participation in sports. Does Troy think Cory will be better served by hard work and responsibility or by sports? Social forces, segregation essentially, frustrated Troy’s ability to participate in the Major Leagues, and he turns to theft, which also proves incapable of supporting his family, as he’s arrested and incarcerated. Based on his own personal experiences, Troy makes a decision for Cory’s life when Cory’s just a baby. We see Troy’s love for Cory; Troy wishes a better life for Cory, but Troy cannot seem to accept that there may be more beyond the realm of his own personal experiences. Cory often approaches his father with news about the latest African American ball players making their mark in the Major Leagues, but Troy’s dismissive. Even though hard work has failed to provide for Troy and his family (the house they are in was paid for by Gabriel’s disability pay) the chance for Cory receive a college education dissipates with Troy’s proclamation.

Eventually, Cory will leave the house, and seek the opportunity to become a man away from the prejudices and judgments of his father. Cory (like Troy) will be forced from home in order to achieve his own identity. Cory's now got the "walking blues”, a road many young African Americans are forced to trod in coming of age. As we see reflected in the Romare Bearden's collage, when Cory does return home, a man, there will be no father there to welcome him.