NAME CHANGE?

by Ezra 

Death by Capitalism: The Alienated Life of Troy Maxson

Erik Meier, on “Fences” by August Wilson

FULL TEXT OF FENCES 

WORK CITED

     In “Fences”, August Wilson illustrates the life and times of Troy Maxson in the stories and experiences he references in his children’s upbringing. They include oppression, abuse, corruption and abandonment from his caretakers and society. Marxist Theory outlines the structure of capitalist society which operates on the foundation of mode of production. This structure highlights the social ideology that manipulates and displaces Troy from his labor, his children and himself. Troy’s experiences become the foundation for the morals and lessons he misconstrues and elicits in his children. His false providence blinds him to the emotional, physical and monetary labors and debts cast on his father’s generation, by society, and cast onto him. This conflict is suspended in the balance of liberation for his family and oppression he casts in the process, operating in this society. He fails to witness the values of his labor, the true purpose of his life and place in the world. This leads to the repetitive cycle of abandonment and displacement that continue to contribute to their capitalist society.   

     In “Marx’s Use of “Class””, Bertel Ollman refers to two categories Marx considered to make up the structure of a developed capitalist society. The first category is the capitalist (owner of the means of social production) and the proletarian (employers of wage labor). The capitalist owns the means of production, therefore owning the means of labor and distribution of them (Ollman, 2).  Troy and his boss Mr. Rand, for example, may both be considered wage laborers, however the commissioner would be considered a capitalist, as would the contributors who hold stock in the ownership of their company. He determines the distribution of labor and prices set on their respective wages. Mr. Rand is white, and Troy is Black. The construct of racism is an extension of the social ideology of class separation. This construct works to benefit the social structure of this society, exploiting the labor of black individuals by devaluing them while profiting off of their labor. This determines Troy’s individual and labor as a lesser value based on the color of his skin and places him in a lower-class bracket. Mr. Rand, however, is white and offered access to the position that offers a higher wage. Troy recognizes his ability to play baseball just as well as the white men in his league and athletic cohort, despite being denied the opportunities to do so. He challenges this again to Mr. Rand and the commissioner when representing himself and his abilities to drive a truck and earn a better wage based on his skill. Regardless of skill and race, their wages are driven by and delivered to those in the ruling class of landowners (a third class category of capitalist society), described in “Marx’s Uses of Class” (Ollman 6).

      The foundation for Troy’s will to live a pursue a life of independence after his father abandons him, exists in the needs to sustain it. These needs include food, shelter access to labor and the income to provide them. The ideological barriers set by his society separate him from earning wages to sufficiently meet these needs and he seeks them by shamefully robbing from those who have excess or access to them. The means to his family’s housing, needs can be considered commodities, as they are met and provided by the income that grants access to them. This income is exchanged for the time Troy gives in the form of his labor, to his company in exchange for income. Marx refers to this exchange as commodification, or the monetary value placed on that time reserved for labor (output). This operates under what Marx referred to as the ‘mode production’, and is elaborated in Geert Reuten’s writings on The Capitalist Economy in which the ruling class seizes profit by owning the means of production that distributes access to goods and services to people as well as the labor and wages to produce them. Under the ‘capitalist mode of production’ highlighted in the book “The Unity of Capitalist Economy and State” Reuten says, “Along with this commodification and the wage income deriving from it, the households’ acquirement of production outputs of enterprises takes the form of commodified ‘consumption’” (Reuten 52). The pride that Troy demonstrates for his abilities to provide for his family is displaced. Though it is opposite his father’s shame (for not providing them) he still recycles and demonstrates the tensions, want and dominant control for quality life. When he discusses his hatred for his father, Troy struggles to define the trap his father is in. It is not the guilt of abandoning of his family that traps him, or the responsibility to stay. It is the societal barriers that keep him locked into his labor, void of anything beyond that, including freedom, love or care. This anchors him to a family he cannot provide for and does not wish to. 

TROY How he gonna leave with eleven kids? And where he gonna go? He ain't knew how to do nothing but farm. No, he was trapped and I think he knew it. But I'll say this for him . . . he felt a responsibility toward us. Maybe he ain't treated us the way I felt he should have . . . but without that responsibility he could have walked off and left us . . . made his own way. (Wilson 1.3.37-38)

     Though Troy is able to recognize the loyalty modeled for him by his father, it is coupled with abuse, betrayal and abandonment from his parents. The internalized hatred, anger and pain displayed in Troy and his father are reflective byproducts of the dehumanization and segregation placed on them by their society. This shapes their conflict which results in abandonment, consequently contributing to and demonstrating the same capitalist societal model. 

     Despite the ideological barriers set by society and recognized by Troy, he capitalizes on the inheritance from his brother’s military compensation as well as his own labor income. He now controls the means to his own family’s needs, and the distributions of them, including money, housing, food and protection. In an article featured in “The Black Scholar”, released post-civil rights movement, Alfonso Pinkney discusses methods of liberation attempted by Black Americans who remain segregated, oppressed and obstructed in white European American dominated capitalist society. He says, 

     “...and because the very notion of assimilation as defined by white                       Americans is racist in that it demands that they share and adopt middle-             class white cultural standards, that assimilation at the present time is neither       likely nor desirable” (Pinkney 37). 

     Troy’s capitalization is coupled with his assimilation and previous sacrifices to survive and provide as a Black man in America, Consequently, they have made him bitter and self-righteous. This is revealed in the disdain and conditional relationships he has with his children. Lyons is attuned to the disparities his father faces, who is undervalued and underutilized at his job. He wants no part in contributing to the society his father remains submissive to. Lyons would rather seek value in the labor that liberates him spiritually and serves him purpose and meaning. Despite his lack of wage labor experience, Cory is aware of his talents and the opportunities that follow. This includes access to education and the potential for an independent life, afforded to him by his passions. This secures value in himself but is quickly met with disapproval, from Troy and his authority from his experience with racial oppression in sports. 

TROY. I don’t care where he coming from. The white man ain’t gonna let you get nowhere with that football noway. (Wilson I.3.37-38) The same sentiment is shared when Lyons returns home to ask Troy for a loan while his wife Bonnie works to meet their financial needs. Lyons doesn’t seem ashamed that his wife is bringing in the income for their family, nor does he ask for any more than he knows they need to get by. Lyons and Cory can understand the value of their father’s labor and the liberties it has afforded them, though Troy feels owed for these efforts. 

    Troy’s monetary and material expectations for his children through labor and hard work are mixed with his desires for liberation from the society they must exist in. His demands for unquestioned respect and compliance adhere to this system which blind him from the values his children see in themselves and their father. The tragic theme in August Wilson’s drama is what Karl Marx referred to as Alienation. Mike Healy elaborates in Marx and Digital Machines:   

     “Marx argues that capitalism, in which labour itself becomes a commodity,          continues yet contorts this process to create a contradictory, conflictual              and universal alienated condition in which all relations under capitalism are        alienated relations” (Healy 8).

     In Marx’s third type of alienation is The Alienation of Species. The ‘Species being’ refers to the nature and spirit attached to, recognized and utilized by the individual self. This comes with autonomy, agency and will to serve the values of the self, allowing the self to connect with others. The alienation of nature and spirit (species-being) is the abandonment or failure to connect with the self. This is consequential, following what Marx’s described as the alienation of labor (the act of production) to the self which is replaced by the worker (Healy 10). Consequently, Troy no longer recognizes or seeks meaning and purpose in his own life and therefore cannot see the value in the lives around them.

     The societal conditioning that shaped Troy’s father has been internalized by Troy and attempted on Lyons and Cory. Cory breaks the tension and cycle of generational abuse in this revelation and last interaction with his father. 

TROY You got to get by where? This is my house. Bought and paid for. In full. Took me fifteen years. And if you wanna go in my house and I'm sitting on the steps . . . you say excuse me. Like your mama taught you. (Wilson 2.4.86-87)

CORY You ain’t never done nothing but hold me back. Afraid I was gonna be better than you. All you ever did was try and make me scared of you. (Wilson 2.4.88-89)

CORY It ain't your yard. You took Uncle Gabe's money he got from the army to buy this house and then you put him out.  (Wilson 2.4.89-90)

     Cory has just been stripped of his own opportunity for a future he wanted, leaving him to join the ranks of the same military that permanently disabled his uncle. Troy’s final effort to assert dominance is to threaten to abandon Cory and take away his needs and means for survival. This is quickly challenged as Cory resorts to an attempt on Troy’s life. In his physical defeat, Cory has exposed the travesty of his father’s entitlement and abuse, becoming the last person to abandon Troy. In this unveiling of Troy’s corrupt act of survival, his alienation is fully revealed to him, moments before his inevitable death. The labor, time and wages he contributes to his family, along with his brother’s stolen inheritance, act as the means of control and distributions he holds over them. These means also support and contribute to the liberty for his sons, to choose direction in their lives. This freedom acts as the resistance to the control and dominance Troy attempts to assert on them in this process of capitalist production. He realizes his life has no value as long as he fails to see beyond the monetary gain and labor capacity attached to it. This capacity and gain are the means that replace any vision of the role he plays in his family or to himself. Death now approaches to remind him of this and takes the liberty of relinquishing Troy Maxson from the shackles of his racist capitalist dominant society and his own imprisonment.