Generational dissension in August Wilson’s Fences
Author
Faculty Advisor
Date
2014
Keywords
father son relationships, American drama, August Wilson, Fences, African Americans
Abstract (summary)
August Wilson, the celebrated author of the Pittsburgh Cycle, has always opposed the assimilation of African Americans into the mainstream American society. Wilson has used his plays as a medium to uphold the African American culture. This article explores his play, Fences, and it unwinds how he employs the father-son conflicts as a strategy to prevent the assimilation of a young black man into the mainstream American society. The play revolves around a father-son conflict which springs from the son’s desire to play football in whites’ team. David Marriot in the book, On Black Men posits on the problematic relationship between fathers and their sons: “[. . .] the mark that the black father leaves,” is “ a mark that is both ineffaceable and irremediable." Marriot observes further: “Typed, in the wider culture as the cause of, and cure for, black men’s ‘failure,’ his father’s apparently lost and untellable, life is the story that the son must find and narrate if he is to begin to understand how, and why, blackness has come to represent an inheritable fault."
Publication Information
Jose, Soumya, and Sony Jalarajan Raj. "Generational Dissension in August Wilson’s Fences." International Research Journal of Management Sociology and Humanity, 5.2 (2014): 568-581. Web. 24 May 2016.
DOI
Notes
Item Type
Article
Language
English
Rights
All Rights Reserved