FENCES By August Wilson

Student Guide &

Supplementary

Texts

Name ________________

1

Harlem

By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it ____________________________________________________________________

like a _____________________________________________________________________?

Or ________________________________________________________________________

And then __________________________________________________________________?

Does it ___________________________________________________________________?

Or ________________________________________________________________________

like a _____________________________________________________________________?

Maybe it just _______________________________________________________________

like a _____________________________________________________________________.

Or does it ____________?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/langston-hughes

2

The Ex-Basketball Player

Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,

Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off

Before it has a chance to go two blocks,

At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth's Garage

Is on the corner facing west, and there,

Most days, you'll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.

Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps--

Five on the side, the old bubble-head style,

Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.

One's nostrils are two S's, and his eyes

An E and O. And one is squat, without

A head at all--more of a football type.

Once Flick played for the high-school team, the Wizards.

He was good: in fact, the best. In '46

He bucketed three hundred ninety points,

A county record still. The ball loved Flick.

I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty

In one home game. His hands were like wild birds.

He never learned a trade, he just sells gas,

Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while,

As a gag, he dribbles an innertube,

But most of us remember anyway.

His hands are fine and nervous on the lug wrench.

It makes no difference to the lug wrench, though.

Off work, he hangs around Mae's Lunchonette.

Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball,

Smokes those thin cigars, nurses lemon phosphates.

Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods

Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers

Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.

-John Updike

Questions for Discussion

1. How does the writer depict Flick as he is today? How would you describe him if you were to see him at the garage?

2. What does the writer want you to understand about Flick’s life?

3

Wilson said that he heard more clearly the voices from the street corners

and cigar stores of his youth. And he kept coming back to Pittsburgh to

dip the ladle of his art into this crucible of memory and inspiration,

using history much as Shakespeare did—as raw material to mold and

shape. The outcome is stories rich in the “love, honor, duty, and

betrayal” that he has said are at the heart of all his plays.

4

5

History of 1957 With Fences, August Wilson takes us to 1957 — a seminal year in black American

history with events across the nation that presaged the coming civil rights era.

Here’s a look at major events in that year:

“Stand up for justice,” Martin Luther King, Jr. told the crowd at the Lincoln

Memorial on May 17. King was at the time known mainly for his role in the

Montgomery bus boycott. He spoke many times that year, but his “Give Us

the Ballot” speech was perhaps the most influential as he asked members of

Congress to ensure the voting rights of African-Americans. To his fellow

activists, he said: “I realize that it will cause restless nights sometime. It might

cause losing a job; it will cause suffering and sacrifice. It might even cause

physical death for some. But if physical death is the price that some must pay

to free their children from a permanent life of psychological death,

then nothing can be more Christian.”

On September 9th,

President Eisenhower

signed the bill King and

many others had fought to pass. The Civil

Rights Act of 1957 was the first bill of its kind since 1875. Vice

President Richard Nixon wrote in a letter to King: “My only

regret is that I have been unable to do more than I have.

Progress is understandably slow in this field, but we at least can

be sure that we are moving steadily and surely ahead.” Though

the act’s effectiveness had been limited by an amendment

inserted by Southern senators, which required a local jury trial

for any offenders of the law, the bill set off a wave of stronger legislation in the sessions to follow.

Later that same month, nine students desegregated Little Rock’s Central High School, an act ordered three

years earlier when the Supreme Court decided Brown vs.

Board of Education. Riots broke out in the weeks that

followed, including on September 23rd. That same day,

a home run hit by Milwaukee Braves’ player Hank

Aaron clinched the team their first pennant title in

franchise history. Aaron quotes a Wisconsin’s

CIO News in his autobiography: “Milwaukee’s dusky

Hank Aaron blasted the Braves into the World Series

only a few hours after an insane mob of white

supremacists took the Stars and Stripes in Little Rock

and tramped it to the ground in front of Central High

School…The cheers that are lifted to Negro

ballplayers only dramatize the stupidity of the jeers

that are directed at those few Negro kids trying to get

a good education for themselves in Little Rock.”

The year 1957 is remembered now as a landmark on the journey toward civil rights, but Wilson reminds us in

Fences how often the effects were little felt by average citizens. He approached writing a history of African-

American experience by examining the culture, rather than the events of an era:

6

“I listen to the music of the particular period that I’m working on,”

Wilson has said of his process. “Inside the music are clues to what is

happening with the people.” In the 1950s, that music was the blues,

a foundation of Wilson’s playwriting. “[The blues] is the greatest

source of my inspiration,” he says. “I see the blues as the cultural

response of black America to the world that they found themselves

in, and contained within the blues are the ideas and attitudes of the

culture.”

- Excerpted from Hard Success: A Closer Look at 1957 by Charles Haugland, Huntington Theatre Company

As a young man, Wilson haunted Pittsburgh's thrift stores, buying stacks of old albums for a nickel each. One day, he came across a recording by Bessie Smith, one of the great blues singers of the 1920s and '30s.

"I put that on, and it was unlike anything I'd ever heard before," Wilson recalls. "Somehow, all that other music was different from that. And I go, 'Wait a minute. This is mine… there's a history here.'"

The first song on the record was "Nobody in Town Can Bake a Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine." Listening to the song, over and over, Wilson realized he could write in the language he heard around him — black street vernacular — rather than the English he admired in the works of such writers as Dylan Thomas. It was, he recalls, a defining moment: "The universe stuttered, and everything fell into place."

In Wilson's Ma Rainey, the title character calls the blues "life's way of talking." Wilson says the blues are life's instructions: "Contrary to what most people think, it's not defeatist, 'Oh, woe is me.' It's very life-affirming, uplifting music. Because you can sing that song, that's what enables you to survive."

-NPR.org

To hear this story, visit: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1700922

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1700922

7

The Art of Romare Bearden

& its influence on August Wilson’s playwriting

By Andrea Allinger

“What I saw was black life presented on its own terms, on a grand and epic scale, with all its richness and fullness, in a language that was vibrant and which, made attendant to everyday life,

ennobled it, affirmed its value, and exalted its presence.”

~ August Wilson on Romare Bearden’s Art (Fishman 134)

The artist Romare Bearden and the playwright August Wilson represent two different

walks of life. Acquainted with the likes of Duke Ellington and Eleanor Roosevelt and born into a

household of two college-educated parents in culturally rich Harlem, Bearden’s childhood gave

him more advantages than did that of August Wilson, a product of an absentee father who

dropped out of high school to become an autodidact1 writer. Bearden graduated from New York

University in 1935 with a degree in education, and remained a fixture in the booming intellectual

outlet of the metropolis worked from his studio atop of Harlem’s infamous Apollo Theatre—a

local hot spot for jazz and the blues.

Bearden used his art to speak, while Wilson used his words to paint a picture. Both strove

to unite the black community despite the common struggles of poverty and oppression, and guide

them as a whole to the recognition of their African roots. Although the two men never met,

Wilson’s work was inspired and enriched by what he took from Bearden’s collages, namely Mill

Hand’s Lunch Bucket and The Piano Lesson. In Bearden, Wilson found his “artistic mentor and

sought. . . to make [his] plays the equal of [Bearden’s] canvasses” (Fishman 134). Wilson drew

his characters from the colorful and lively collages and paintings Bearden created, conjuring a

story from viewing a single piece of art.

Upon viewing Bearden’s art for the first time, Wilson was changed forever. He explains,

“what for me had been so difficult, Bearden made seem so simple, so easy. What I saw was

black life presented on its own terms, on a grand and epic scale, with all its richness and fullness,

in a language that was vibrant and which made attendant to everyday life, ennobled it, affirmed

its value, exalted its presence . . .My response was visceral” (Fishman 134). Wilson wrote two

plays directly inspired by Bearden’s paintings, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and The Piano

1 Autodidact – a self-taught person

8

Lesson. Their common ancestry made for a likeness in their work and expressing the African

traditions and cultures of the past and the present peoples. Bearden’s inspiration came directly

from African culture: “[i]t would not be an exaggeration to say that Romare Bearden was

obsessed with the notion of vernacular2, African American-based origins of knowledge,

efficacy3, and metaphysical4 dominion” (Powell 14). Wilson’s cycle of plays aims at delineating

an oral history of the journey of Africans brought to America thus merging them into what we

know today as African Americans.

Bearden was one of Wilson’s creative mentors, although the men never met. Wilson

writes, “I never had the privilege of meeting Romare Bearden. Once I stood outside 357 Canal

Street in silent homage, daring myself to knock on his door. I am sorry I didn’t, for I have never

looked back from the moment when I first encountered his art” (Fishman 147). . . . The fact that

the two men were never acquainted makes the message of their art even more powerful and

universal (148). It was as if Wilson and Bearden pulled images from a shared pool of African

traditions and oral history, illustrating richly the culture’s triumphs and tragedies in their

respective art forms. Both men were prideful in creating a lens into the black culture and being

true to the roots.

His creativity opened the world of an oppressed and downtrodden post-slavery black

America, giving voices and stories to the characters Bearden created in his collages. Wilson

develops the tragedies into triumphs while realistically applying failures and poverty to their

living situations. The African traditions are authentically depicted in Wilson’s plays because of

the colorful collages Bearden created.

Post-reading assignment: Find the Bearden collages mentioned on the following pages and

respond to each prompt. Prepare these notes for class discussion; prepare to be asked to

contribute your thoughts.

2 Vernacular – language, dialect spoken by people of a particular region or area 3 Efficacy – the ability to produce a desired outcome 4 Metaphysical – beyond the laws of nature; abstract

9

MOONLIGHT PRELUDE, 1987

1. Look deeply at the collage for 1 minute. Record your first impressions.

2. Describe the collage in detail. What do you see?

3. What questions do you have?

4. Think about what you have observed. What is the symbolism of the train? In order to think deeply

about this question, consider the people in the collage. Who are they? Where are they positioned? What

does this tell you about who might be aboard the train?

10

PITTSBURGH MEMORIES, 1984

1. Look deeply at the collage for 1 minute. Record your first impressions.

2. Describe the different scenes taking place in the collage. What is happening “inside” and “outside”?

What do these scenes tell you about the collage’s setting?

3. There is a different mood “inside” and “outside.” What artistic techniques help create this difference?

What message do you suppose the artist is trying to convey?

4. Return to the collage and examine the two faces looking out of the windows. Why do you think they

were included in the collage? What do you think they add to the collage’s message?

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MYSTERIES, 1964

1. Look deeply at the collage for 1 minute. Record your first impressions.

2. Describe one theme in this collage? Refer to at least two aspects of the collage as evidence.

3. In your opinion, what is surprising or mysterious about the collage? Explain.

4. In this piece, the faces and eyes are looking directly at the viewer. What effect does this have on the

viewer? Why do you think we are being “looked at”?

Collage is an artistic medium with many layers and complexities. How would you depict the complexities of Fences in a collage of your own creation?

-Exercise adapted from Gallery Walk, Tufts.edu

12

The Negro League baseball teams of the mid-20th century were created in response to an 1884 “gentlemen’s” agreement that kept African American players from competing in the Major and minor leagues in America.

In 1920, Rube Foster, star pitcher, manager and owner of the Chicago American Giants, combined eight

leading black teams from around the Midwest into

the Negro National League.

Over the next 40 years, and

through three more segregated

major leagues — a second

Negro National League, the

Eastern Colored League and

the Negro American League

— teams maintained a high

level of professional skill and

became centerpieces for

economic development in

many black communities.

In 1945, Major League

Baseball’s Brooklyn Dodgers

recruited Jackie Robinson

from the Kansas City

Monarchs.

Robinson became the first African-American in the

modern era to play on a Major League roster.

While this historic event was a key moment in

baseball and civil rights history, it hastened the

decline of the Negro Leagues.

The best black players were now recruited for the

Major Leagues, and black fans followed. The last

Negro Leagues teams folded in the early 1960s.

By the 1930s, Pittsburgh had become home to the

second Negro National League and the only city in

the country with two black professional teams, the

Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords.

HOMESTEAD GRAYS Located first in a small steel town outside of

Pittsburgh, the Grays dominated the Eastern baseball

scene. They were led by future Hall of Famers Josh

Gibson (catcher), “Cool” Papa Bell (outfield), Judy

Johnson (third base), Buck Leonard (first base) and

Cuban great Martin Dihigo (second base, pitcher,

outfielder). Their ace pitcher was “Smokey” Joe Williams, who once struck out 27 batters in a 12-inning game.

During World War II, the Grays played their home games at both Forbes Field (Pittsburgh) and Griffith Stadium

(Washington, D.C.) when the white Major League clubs were on the road. The Grays traditionally outdrew their

white counterparts, the cellar-dwelling Washington Senators.

PITTSBURGH CRAWFORDS Originally, the Pittsburgh Crawfords team was composed of amateurs from the sandlots of the city’s Hill District,

but by the early 1930s, the team fielded some of the strongest lineups in baseball history. They won the 1935 Negro

National League championship with five future Hall of Famers: James “Cool Papa” Bell, Oscar Charleston, Josh

Gibson, Judy Johnson and the legendary Satchel Paige.

Owned by Pittsburgh gambling and numbers racketeer Gus Greenlee, the Crawfords was the best financed team

in black baseball during its early years. Revenue generated from his “business” operations allowed Greenlee to sign

black baseball’s biggest names. It also enabled him to build his own ballpark, Gus Greenlee Field, in Pittsburgh’s

Hill District. - Portions of the article are excerpted from the Pittsburgh Pirates’ website and NegroLeagueBaseball.com

The Homestead Grays won nine consecutive league

pennants from 1937-45.

The Pittsburgh Crawfords, above , were one of the most formidable teams of the mid-1930s. Center, Josh Gibson, known as the black Babe Ruth, one of the greatest players kept from the major leagues by the unwritten rule (enforced until the year of his death) against hiring black ballplayers. Gibson played as a catcher for the Pittsburgh Crawfords (1927-29 and 1932-36) and the Homestead Grays (1930-31 and 1934-6). Gibson was elected to the Baseball Hall of

13

Fences: Questions for Act I, Scenes 1 & 2

1. What are Troy and his friend Bono discussing at the beginning of the play? Write at

least two sentences detailing this conversation.

2. Of what action does Bono accuse Troy? What’s his evidence?

3. How do you describe Troy’s and Rose’s marriage, based on their interaction in scene

1?

What do we know about ROSE?

4. Who is Lyons, and why does he show up? What does he do? What else do we know

about him?

5. Describe Troy’s meeting “the Devil.” Use complete sentences.

6. What is Rose singing at the beginning of scene 2?

7. Describe Gabriel:

8. For what does Troy blame himself regarding Gabriel?

9. Discuss your impressions of the play so far: plot, character, and conflict:

14

Your Questions: ACT 2

In groups of no more than 4, you’ll be assigned a number of pages on which to base a thoughtful discussion

question. Record your questions, as well as your classmates’ questions, on this page.

15

“Fences” Q & A

Contextual: (helps the reader understand the historical context of the literature)

1. What were the Negro Leagues?

2. What is the 651 that “Miss Pearl hit” in Act One? What’s “playing numbers”?

3. What might be Troy’s educational background? Rose’s?

4. From where did the characters learn the songs they sing?

5. What would a garbage collector have earned working on the back of the truck

(“lifting and hauling” the garbage) in 1957? What would be the wage disparity

between a black garbage collector and a white garbage truck driver at this time?

Factual: (one right answer based on the text—usually can be pointed to on a page)

1. How did Gabe get hurt? What is his condition called, medically?

2. What exactly does Troy do for work, and is he paid hourly?

3. Why did Troy miss Lyons’s upbringing? For how long was Troy in jail?

4. How does Troy know Bono?

5. Explain Troy’s conflict at work.

16

Interpretive: (More than one correct answer, based on the text; concern the author’s

choices concerning literary elements, such as characterization, conflict, symbolism, etc.)

1. How happy is Rose?

2. Is Cory a spoiled child? In what way?

3. Is Troy jealous of Jackie Robinson (or any black, major league baseball players)?

4. How does Troy’s past affect his relationships with

a. Cory

b. Lyons

c. Bono

d. Rose

5. “A man takes care of his family, it’s his job” seems to be a mantra for Troy. Who

has taught him this philosophy, or what in his past has made him believe this?

6. Interpret Troy’s grandiose/egotistical character, as well as his relationship with

Cory.

7. Why won’t Troy let Cory play football?

8. When Cory “strikes out” with Troy, why doesn’t Troy let himself take a real swing

at him?

9. Characterize Gabriel and his belief that he is an angel?

10. Does Troy feel more guilty about Gabe’s disability or the way he has managed

Gabe’s money from the government?

11. Characterize Troy’s relationship with Rose.

12. Characterize Troy’s relationship with his own father.

13. Why does this fence take so many weeks to build?

14. Gabriel gets arrested for “disturbing the peace.” Explain how he might have done

so, and why this may be symbolic for Troy.

15. Explain any of the baseball metaphors in the play.

16. Explain Troy’s relationship with “Mr. Death.”

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Evaluative: (Connect the text to our own life experiences; enable our empathy; ask us to

find connective threads between real life and the literature)

1. Should family relationships be based on obligation through blood or by love?

2. Do you believe that Troy’s not wanting Cory to play football in college has

anything to do with his own experiences not playing baseball professionally?

3. Do you agree with the way Troy has managed Gabe’s income? Why or why not?

4. Do you think Troy understands what love is before he goes to jail, before he

meets Rose? Does he understand what love is now?

5. In what ways would this play be different if it showed us a white, American

couple in the 1950s? Why is it important that there are no white characters in the

play?

6. Why do you think that August Wilson set the play in one place, the back of the

house, and the yard?

7.

18

Fences Creative Writing Exercise

In Fences, Troy personifies death as a person that he “done wrestled with.” His description of death is

creative and symbolic—he conveys a lot of depth with this personification.

As a creative exercise, write a page that personifies an abstract concept.

A concept is an idea—it is intangible—it is not an object.

This can be something you’re afraid of (like death), something you love (like summertime), something

you wish you could talk to (like fear, or silence, or the dawn).

Ideas:

Describe your relationship with the concept.

What would it look like?

What would you discuss?

How would you interact?

In what setting would you “meet” this concept?

DUE: _______________________________________________________

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Fences Personal Response/Journal Responses

Write as close to one page as you can about any of these topics:

Rose: Is there a strong woman in your life from whom you’ve learned a lot? Describe this person in detail,

and let us hear her voice. Describe your relationship and how she has modeled some kind of behavior for

you.

Gabriel: In what ways has mental illness affected you or your family? Do you have a relative or friend

you’ve known who suffers from a mental illness? What is your relationship with this person like, and in

what ways have you come to better understand him or her? What makes you comfortable and

uncomfortable with this person?

Fatherhood: What, to you, is the definition of a good father? Can anyone be perfect all the time? Troy

tells Cory, his son, that he doesn’t have to love him—that’s not his job. Putting food on the table and

providing a roof over his head is his job. Do you agree that love is not a condition of parenting as long as

a child’s physical needs are met (food, shelter, clothing)?

Fences: How do you build metaphorical “fences” around yourself? How do you let people in, and who is

allowed in? How do you keep people out, and who stays out?

Due: _______________________________________________________

20

August Wilson, in his own words, on “Fences”:

“In Fences [the audience] sees a garbage man, a person

they don’t really look at, although they may see

a garbage man every day.... This black

garbage man’s life is very similar to their

own, he is affected by the same things —

love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty.”

“Fences actually started with Troy

standing in the yard with the baby in his

arms, and the first line I wrote was ‘I’m

standing out here in the yard with my

daughter in my arms. She’s just a wee bitty

little ole thing. She don’t understand

about grownups’ business, and she ain’t

got no mama.’ I didn’t know who he was talking to. I

said, ‘O.K., he’s talking to his wife.’ O.K., why is he telling her this?”

“I thought, ‘I can write one of those plays where you have a big character and everything

revolves around him….In Fences I wanted to show Troy as very responsible. He did not leave.

He held a job. He fathered three kids by three different women, due to the circumstances of his

life, and he was responsible toward all of them.”

“I think what impressed me most about Troy was his willingness to engage life, to live it

zestfully and fully despite the particulars of his past, despite the way his mother abandoned him,

the way he was put out of the house by his father at fourteen, the way he spent fifteen years in

the penitentiary — none of that broke his spirit.”