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Provost
Name: ___________________________________________________
Fences
by August Wilson
English 10 Reading Packet
Character List:
Character
Description
Troy Maxson Early 50s. Legendary Negro League baseball player, now working as a
garbage collector. Troy is a story-teller. He is jovial, loving, brash, and
overbearing all at the same time. A complicated man embittered by the
racism he has experienced throughout his life.
Rose Maxson Mid 40s. Troy's wife. A strong, supportive woman who is fiercely protective
of her husband and son. A loving presence who counterbalances Troy's
ferocity for life, Rose mothers almost everyone around her. She is quiet and
laughs easily. A gentle spirit.
Jim Bono Early 50s. Troy's very good friend. He and Troy met while they were in
prison. Bono has stayed with Troy through his legendary days in baseball and
today works beside him as a garbage man. The two men are like brothers to
each other.
Cory Late teens. Troy and Rose's son. Cory is a natural athlete like his father, eager
to prove himself to the legendary Troy. Cory has been playing football,
hoping to catch the eye of college recruiters, which would offer him
educational opportunities his illiterate father never had.
Lyons Mid 30s. Troy's son from a previous relationship. Lyons is a musician who
cannot seem to keep a job. He is full of laughter and uses his charming
personality to quell his father's quick anger. A grown man, he lives with his
girlfriend nearby.
Gabriel Early 40s. Troy's brother. After suffering a severe head injury in World War II,
Gabriel is left with a child-like innocence and a deep sense of concern for his
older brother. He believes with every fiber of his being that he is the
archangel Gabriel.
Raynell Nine years old. Troy's daughter and youngest child from his relationship with
Alberta. After Alberta dies in childbirth, Rose takes the baby in, and despite
her husband's infidelity, raises Raynell as her own.
The play begins in the year 1957.
Scene Questions
Provost
Act One Scene One p.1-20
References:
A & P: a grocery store chain
Uncle Remus: African-American folktale icon in a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore collected
from the Southern United States. Many of the stories teach moral lessons, similar to Aesop’s Fables. Remus is
a kindly old former slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered
around him.
“Eating beans”: slang expression that means someone has run out of money and cannot afford more
expensive food items.
Directions: Answer the following questions in complete sentences.
1. What do you learn about Troy Maxson from the opening stage directions?
2. What policy at the sanitation department is Troy challenging? Why has this caused a problem?
3. What questionable behaviors does Bono point out to Troy involving a woman named Alberta?
4. Why does Troy wish to discourage his son Cory from playing football?
5. What is Troy’s connection to sports? Why is Troy bitter about baseball and sports in general?
6. What is the purpose of Lyon’s visit? How does Lyons offend his father?
7. Why does Lyons cling to his music even though it makes him very little money?
Act One Scene Two p.21-28
Provost
References:
Numbers: slang for playing the lottery
St. Peter: biblical keeper of Heaven’s gate and the Book of Life
Archangel Gabriel: angel responsible for sounding the trumpet that will open the gate of Heaven on Judgment
Day.
Directions: Answer the following questions in complete sentences.
8. Rose states, “those that need the least always get lucky. Poor folks can’t get nothing” (Wilson 21).
Why, then, does she play the lottery?
9. How has Gabriel’s wartime injury benefitted Tory?
10. Why does Troy feel guilty about Gabriel renting a room at another house?
11. Why does Troy procrastinate about building a fence around the yard?
Act One Scene Three p.29-40
Directions: Answer the following questions in complete sentences.
12. Why is Troy unable to tell Rose the score of the baseball game?
13. How does Troy assert authority over Cory? In what ways does Cory attempt to seek his father’s
approval?
14. Why does Troy tell Cory that he will not give permission for Cory to play college football? How do
father and son’s perspectives differ on the issue of playing football?
Provost
15. Troy advises Cory to “learn how to put your hands to some good use. Besides hauling people’s
garbage” (Wilson 35). How is this advice different from the advice that Troy gave Lyons earlier?
16. What point is Troy making when he responds to Cory’s question, “How come you ain’t never liked
me?” (Wilson 37). What is Troy’s motivation for refusing to overprotect Cory?
17. What does Troy mean when he tells Rose, “I can’t give nothing else” (Wilson 40)?
Act One Scene Four p.41-58
References:
Walking blues: leaving your family behind in order to start fresh in another location
Directions: Answer the following questions in complete sentences.
18. How is Troy’s conflict with the sanitation department resolved?
19. How does Troy discover that Cory has been playing football rather than working?
20. What was Troy’s relationship with his father like? How did Troy become a man?
21. Why did Troy spend fifteen years in a penitentiary?
22. What does Troy refer to as “strike one” (Wilson 58)?
Act Two Scene One p.59-72
23. Why has Gabriel been arrested?
Provost
24. Bono states, “My man Troy knows that he’s doing… he might take me somewhere” (Wilson 62). What
has Bono learned from his friendship with Troy?
25. When Troy tells Bono that Alberta is “stuck on for good” (Wilson 63), what does he mean?
26. What does Troy say is his motivation from having an affair?
27. How does Troy describe eighteen years of marriage to Rose? How does Rose view those same years of
marriage?
28. Why does Troy call “strike two” (Wilson 72) on Cory at this point in the play?
Act Two, Scenes Two and Three p.73-79
29. What unintentional benefit does Troy receive from having his brother Gabriel hospitalized?
30. A humbled Troy asks Rose to take care of his illegitimate child. What is Rose’s response?
Act Two, Scene Four p.80-89
31. What is ironic about Troy’s feelings about his job now that he has been promoted to garbage truck
driver?
32. How does the final confrontation between Troy and Cory begin? How does it end?
Act Two, Scene Five p.90-101
Provost
33. Eight years later, the family gathers for Troy’s funeral. What has Cory become over the past eight
years? What does this reveal about his character?
34. What has become of Lyons over the past eight years? What does this reveal about his character?
35. How did Troy die? What does the manner of his death reveal about his character?
36. How does Rose convince Cory to attend his father’s funeral?
37. How does Rose’s relationship with Raynell show how she has grown over the past eight years?
38. When Gabriel tries to blow his horn at the end of the play, he discovers that it doesn’t work. How does
he solve his problem?
39. Troy states that the only thing that separated him from his father was the matter of a few years. In
what ways were Troy's and his father's experiences and emotions similar? In what ways did Troy grow
beyond his father?
40. Rose tells Cory that "Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn't . . . and at the same time he
tried to make you into everything he was" (Wilson 97). Do agree or disagree with her assessment?
Explain why.