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Erin Ware

Dr. Lee Hobbs

SEL 267 American Literature 1915 – Present

30 April, 2008

Comparing the Main Female Characters in The Sun Also Rises and Fences and Their Roles as Feminists

Feminism is a concept that perplexes and in some cases intimidates a lot of people, when sadly enough they do not understand the true definition. Feminism isn’t a theory or concept of hatred towards men and men can be feminists and not lose their masculinity. The definition of feminism is, “A belief in social, political, and economical equality,”(American Heritage Dictionary, par 1). So unless you believe that people of different race, different gender, different religious background, and different sexualities are not equal you are indeed a feminist by definition. In Earnest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and August Wilson’s Fences there is only one main female character, Brett and Rose, surrounded by male characters, which leads to these women maintaining their character and position. Both Brett and Rose, though total opposite in character, play very strong roles and exhibit feminist traits through their beliefs, how they live their lives, the period of time they lived in, and the choices they make.
Both women seem to rise above their time and shine as strong independent women and perhaps the choices they make lead them to take on independency. Brett lives in Paris, France after WWI and leads a life that is quite different than most women during that time period. Brett comes and goes as she pleases, drinks heavily, and courts men. Brett jumps from man to man throughout the book; she starts off being engaged to Michael, and then seeks Jacob and while she is seeking Jacob she is running around with Count Mippipoplous, and then has an affair with Robert Cohn which leads up to her rendezvous with Pedro Romero and finally ends up engaged to Michael, again. Brett, within the short amount of time this book takes place, goes through five men. Brett lives life drinking and traveling and also has a career as a nurse for the army.
When the reader is first introduced to Brett, she enters the bar were Jacob is with a crowd of men, homosexual men. Also for Brett’s time she was liberated in dress; “pulled her man’s felt hat down” (Hemingway 35) and “her hair was brushed back like a boy’s” (Hemingway 30). Brett is described several times dressing with men’s clothing and pulling her hair back like a man. The connection between dressing slightly like a man and still “looking lovely” (Hemingway 28) proves Brett’s rebellion of long flowing hair and long ladylike dresses which any artwork done of women in the 1920’s showed flowing long hair and ladylike dresses. Therefore from history and artwork we can deduct that Brett’s dress and attitude towards life was not suppressed or constrained at all…Brett held the upper hand in her life. Brett also states “we have our careers” (Hemingway 68). Brett is a career woman and not a homemaker which is very apparent throughout the entire book. Brett almost takes on the role of a man by courting different men and teasing the men she is around. All of the men in the book at some point are infatuated with Brett. Brett has become an equal in a world when women were not considered equals. Brett pokes fun at the men surrounding her, “you’ve a hell of a biblical name Jake” (Hemingway 30). Brett is on the same level as these men that she can poke fun and tease the way she does and she is always included in the outings.
Brett is a woman that has a presence of independence. Towards the end of the novel when she meets and falls for Pedro Romero we truly see Brett’s independence. Because she is not a lady or does not follow feminine ways she has to let Pedro go for she fears she will ruin his career. Brett is aware of the difference in herself and other women during her time and Brett knows where her place is. Brett expresses to Jake “He was born in 1905. I was in school in Paris, then. Think of that.” (Hemingway 248). Brett goes on to tell Jake that “he’d only been with two women before. He never cared about anything but bull-fighting” (Hemingway 248). Brett’s place is with the men who have embraced her liberation and treat her as an equal. Also Brett leaving Pedro is self awareness, “You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch,” of her inability to be suppressed by someone (Hemingway 249).
Brett is faced with challenges that she overcomes and throughout the course of the novel becomes more aware of herself and what her needs are. Brett’s choices made proves her independency and stance on equality and she was never forced into her decisions she made them willingly on her own. Brett surrounds herself with men and fits in as an equal and for the 1920’s was an accomplishment. Brett lives her life the way she chooses and when something is standing in her way she illuminates them from her life like Robert Cohn. Robert was causing her grief and Brett made Robert very aware that he was not welcome. Although the reader might not like Brett or agree with her decisions you can not deny that she stands for independence and equality.
In comparison to Brett, Rose does take on the mother, housewife role that was very typical for women during the 1950-60’s. However, Rose is a special breed of woman who indicated throughout the entire play her strength and refusal to be less than any man. In an age where June Clever was the role model for women to follow, Rose marched to the beat of her own drum. The interesting factor about Rose opposed to Brett is that she is fighting two potential judgments, she is a woman and she is black. During the 1950-60’s blacks were not suppressed like they were in the previous decades, but there was still segregation and Rose, unlike her husband, didn’t let it effect her. Rose tried to make Troy see that racism wasn’t a factor for his inability to play baseball. “How you gonna play ball when you were over fourty?” she asks him (Wilson 43). She continues to tell Troy that “Times have changes from when you was young. Troy, people change. The world’s changing around you and you can’t even see it” (Wilson 40).
This battle that Rose takes on with Troy preludes the argument of their son Cory playing football which is yet another example of Rose’s strength as a woman and the battles she chooses to have with Troy. The epitome of the entire story is that Rose is outsmarting her husband and is aware of what is going on. Rose isn’t the mousy woman that never speaks against her husband, Rose tells Troy what she thinks and also when she believes Troy is out of line. Rose fights for Cory’s right to play football, “why don’t you let that boy go ahead and play football Troy? Ain’t no harm in that” (Wilson 39). Rose defends herself and Cory and the reason this argument comes to a halt is the underlying events that are surfacing.
Rose is aware of Troy’s unfaithfulness, in act one Troy leaves to go “listen to the ball game” (Wilson 28) and when he returns home he tries to kiss Rose and Rose stops him. “I thought you went down Taylors’ to listen to the game. Go on, Troy! You supposed to be putting up this fence” (Wilson 30). Troy attempts to kiss Rose again and Rose responds, “Go on, Troy. I ain’t studying you” (Wilson 30). Rose’s insistence on Troy not kissing her and not submitting herself to being a sloppy second proves her strength as a woman, she demands respect. Another instance when Rose demands respect from Troy is when he was out on the porch yelling for Rose and she replies, “Hush all that hollering, man! I know you out here.” “Man, hush your mouth I ain’t no dog…talk about come when you call me” (Wilson 43). Troy doesn’t react which his guilt at this point could be getting the best of him. However, the way Wilson sets Rose’s character up from the beginning the audience gets a sense of command and strength from Rose right up to the end of the play when she takes Raynell to raise as her own. After everything Rose goes through, watching her son be put down by Troy, finding out her husband has been having and affair, and then discovering Troy’s lover was pregnant and raising the child after the mother dies. Rose treated everyone equally and tried to encourage Troy to do the same. Rose also encouraged Troy to look at things differently. Rose, especially for her time, would be considered a feminist.
Feminists don’t have to take to picket lines to claim their beliefs. Women and men just have to live the lifestyle; equality and holding themselves up to maintain equality which, Brett and Rose fulfill. For the times these women had so much strength they eventually disrupted the men’s lives that surrounded them. Rose’s husband cheated on her and his claim was that Rose wouldn’t let him be himself. Rose just simply demanded respect and he hold up his responsibilities. Whereas Brett crumbles the men she is around, Robert Cohn and Michael end up fighting over her and Brett is disgusted by both of them. Also in the beginning on the book Brett has that affect on Jacob but Jacob sees her for what she is and in Fences Bono sees Rose for whom she is.
Through the experiences these woman, we as readers share their struggle to be independent woman. Both Brett and Rose live in a time where women were not on the same pedestal as men and women either took their duties or stood up for themselves and lived their lives, which Brett and Rose did. Hemingway and Wilson, both male writers, had very strong women characters in both of their stories. Both Brett and Rose demonstrate a feminist role in two completely different settings and lifestyles. Therefore, feminists can be anywhere it is how they present themselves.

References
Hemingway, Earnest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926.
Wilson, August. Fences. New York: Penguin Group, 1985.
American Heritage Dictionary. “Feminism.” 2003. Houghton Mifflin Company. 29 April, 2008

---- My Final Research paper is posted under Wilson because I wrote about Rose and her feministic traits in Fences.

Shayla Sorrells
American Literature 1915- Present
Dr. Hobbs
29, April 2008

Relative Chaos: The Representation of Dysfunctional Families in Literature
In society today, many people are considered to come from broken or dysfunctional homes. A dysfunctional family is defined as a family, in which conflict, misbehavior and even abuse on the part of individual members of the family occur continually, leading other members to accommodate such actions. (www. k-state.edu/counseling/topics/relationships/dysfunc.htm). Dysfunctional families are not only seen in everyday life, but are also found on TV. shows and movies as well. What many people do not realize is, dysfunctional families are also represented in popular literature. Two prime examples of this would be in August Wilson’s play Fences and Alice Walkers short story Everyday Use. In both of these works of literature, each family displays certain characteristics that eventually allow the reader to recognize that the family is dysfunctional. In both Fences and Everyday Use the portrayal of dysfunctional families is the most realistic representation of reality.
In August Wilson’s Fences, the Maxson family is a true illustration of a broken family. Characteristics such as torn father and son relationships, extramarital affairs, jealousy and bitterness are what cause so much turmoil between the characters. Troy Maxson, the main character is the root for all the drama. As a child Troy was abandoned by his mother, and raised by his father. His father never really gave him the love and approval that he needed when he was young. In fact they constantly fought with each other. There is one example in the text where Troy is having a conversation with Bono and Lyons and he tells them about an incident that made him see his father in a new light. “Now it was my turn to run him off. I picked up them same reins that he had used on me. I picked up them reins and commenced to whupping on him. The gal jumped up and run off.... and when my daddy turned to face me, I could see why the devil had never come to get him... cause he was the devil himself. I don’t know what happened. When I woke up, I was laying right there by the creek and Blue... this old dog we had... was licking my face. I couldn’t see nothing.” (Wilson p.52). After Troy had snuck off with a girl, his father caught him and whipped him so badly his eyes were swollen shut. After this he decided to leave his fathers house and live on his own.
A few years later Troy became a father himself but he did not choose to become a different man than his father was. He was incarcerated for most of his oldest son Lyons childhood, causing him to be raised by his mother. Although he was there for his son Corey’s upbringing, he treated both of his sons the same. He never gave them any approval for career choices. He also never expressed his love for them. He constantly criticized their decisions instead of being proud of them. He disagrees with Lyons decision to be a jazz musician and is especially hard on Corey He feels that Corey should not play college football but should focus on school and work instead. The underlying reason that Troy does not want Corey to be recruited is because he was rejected from playing professional baseball. He believes that if he never had a chance to play, Corey should not either. Corey could always feel the tension between them and one day asked why Troy never liked him. As the play progresses, Troy and Corey’s relationship only gets worse and they begin to get into physical confrontations just as Troy and his father did years ago. Once Troy died Corey felt bitterness and resentment towards his father and refused to attend his funeral. “The whole time I was growing up... living in his house... Papa was like a shadow that followed you everywhere. It weighed on you and sunk into your flesh. It would wrap around you and lay there until you couldn’t tell which one was you anymore. That shadow digging in your flesh. Trying to crawl in. Trying to live through you. Everywhere I looked, Troy Maxson was staring back at me ... hiding under the bed...in the closet. I’m saying I’ve got to find a way to get rid of his shadow, Mama.” (Wilson p.97). After he has a long talk with Rose, he decides to pay respect to his late father.
Troy’s extramarital affair with a woman named Alberta was another factor that drove his family away from him. He continually sees this woman behind Rose’s back, despite the warnings from his best friend Bono. Troy feels that he does not need to tell Rose about the affair and thinks that he can have his cake and eat it too. Soon he learns that Alberta is pregnant and has no choice but to tell Rose the truth. When she finds this out she is devastated to learn that after eighteen years of marriage Troy has been unfaithful. He fails to see that he has deeply hurt his wife. To make matters worse, his mistress Alberta died while giving birth to their daughter. He soon comes to Rose and asks if she would raise the baby. She said yes out of the kindness of her heart but told Troy “Okay Troy... you’re right, I’ll take care of your baby for you...cause like you say...she’s innocent... and you can’t visit the sins of the father upon the child. A motherless child has got a hard time. From right now...this child got a mother. But you a womanless man” (Wilson p. 79).Rose had completely stopped speaking to Troy after that moment. He and Corey are no longer speaking as well. He was basically alone in his own home.
The choices Troy made caused his family so much anguish that toward the end of his life, he had no one. Because of his decision to have an affair, he pushed his wife, the one person who loved him unconditionally, away from him. He put his best friend in a tough position because he knew of the affair and did not want to take sides or see Rose get hurt. Eventually he lost his mistress to difficulties during childbirth. If he had of chosen to be a better father to his sons, maybe they could have had closer relationships. If he had of given Corey the encouragement he truly needed, Corey would have never felt that sense of bitterness and hatred toward his father. Troy could have very well chosen to be a different father to his children but he never broke the cycle. Had things gone differently, his family members would not have had so many negative memories of Troy when he died.
In Alice Walker’s Everyday Use sibling rivalry, being ashamed of family circumstances, and inheritance of precious family heirlooms are what conflict this family. The main character Mama, is the single mother of two daughters and has tried to raise them to the best of her ability. Her two daughters Dee and Maggie have two extremely different personalities. “Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a T.V. show of this sort. Out of a dark and soft- seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers” (Walker p.1). From just this brief description, the reader can automatically realize that Dee is more extravagant than her family members. Dee is the older sibling and is very attractive. “Dee is lighter that Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She is a woman now, though sometimes I forget” (Walker p. 2) She is also very intelligent and intellectual. Maggie on the other hand is less attractive, has burns on her body and is slower than her older sister. “ She will stand hopelessly in the corners homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life in the palm of one hand, that no is a word the world never learned to say to her” (Walker p. 1). Although it is never verbally expressed, Dee has always felt she was better than Maggie and Maggie has always been somewhat envious of Dee, which cause a slight sibling rivalry between the two.
Because Dee has always been so beautiful and smart she has felt that she was better than her family members. She was educated, knew how to read very well and was probably the first person in her family to attend college. Her mother only had a second grade education and Maggie was not as bright so she did not finish school either. Dee obviously felt ashamed of her two uneducated relatives and felt ashamed of the fact that they lived in poverty. Mama mentions a few times throughout the story that Dee wanted finer things in life. Things that her mother could not afford to give to her. “Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she’d made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker or minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was” (Walker p.2). Mama knew that Dee was ashamed of the way they lived and this bothered her. Dee never realized that her mother worked hard to give her the things she wanted. She simply looked down on her family.
Soon Dee returns with a new identity and a new boyfriend. She no longer wanted to be called Dee, but preferred being called Wangero. She believed that Dee was a slave name given by “the white man”. She failed to see the symbolic meaning behind her name. She constantly made sly remarks about her sister and her mother as is they were beneath her. She also had her sights set on taking two quilts that had been sewn by her grandmother. These were family heirlooms that Mama had promised to Maggie after Dee had previously called them old fashioned. She told her mother that Maggie would never learn to appreciate the historical value of the quilts the way she did. This left Mama feeling torn between her two daughters. Although Maggie eventually said Dee could have the quilts, for the first time Mama did not allow Dee to have her way. Dee’s selfish ways and arrogance were the main causes for her family’s problems. If she had of just taken the time to appreciate what she had, she would have had a better understanding of her family and their heritage.
Each of the families in these stories had their own issues. Towards the end of each story, these issues were never really resolved. The main cause of the problems between the families was basically selfishness. The representation of family issues in each of these stories is very realistic. As the reader reads on they may be able to identify certain members of their own family.

Works Cited
Walker, Alice “Everyday Use”1973. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Writing. Eds. Kennedy, X.J. and Dana Gioia. 5th Compact Ed. New York Pearson- Longman, 2006.
Wilson, August “Fences” Penguin Books USA Inc. C. 1986
“Dysfunctional Families: How to Overcome the Affects” April 23, 2008
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I have chosen to put my paper under the August Wilson category because his play Fences is another one of the main focuses of my paper. In my paper I discuss the representation of dysfunctional families in literature and the Maxson family is truly dysfunctional. I discussed the main character Troy and why the decisions he made caused so much chaos between his family.

Correlation Paper

by
Robert Debiec

English SEL 267 American Literature 1915-Present
Dr. Lee Hobbs
April 30, 2008

Correlation Paper
The Tony Award winning play “Fences” was written by Pittsburgh native, August Wilson. The play takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when Hank Aaron led the Milwaukee Braves to the World Series beating the New York Giants. The main character of the story, Troy, is a baseball player in the Negro Leagues but is too old when African Americans were being drafted into the Major Leagues. He moves on with his life and works for the sanitation company lifting garbage cans into the dump truck. This step back from being a professional athlete and having to settle with an “average Joe” job depresses him. His son, Cory, is offered to tryout for a football recruit coming into town. Troy does everything in his power to prevent Cory from having his same high hopes and expectations in hopes that Cory will keep his job instead. Similar themes of struggle, failure, and depression can also be seen in the song, “One” by Metallica.
In the song, “One” by Metallica, the interpreted themes are of struggle and deep depression. Metallica describes the feelings and struggles of the main character’s everyday life, as well as book and movie “Johnny Get Your Gun” which focuses on a World War I veteran who suffered many injuries. Suffering from deep depression is easily seen in “Fences.” It is also seen and well understood that the veteran would suffer from great depression as well. Evidence of depression in the song “One” is seen in the refrain, “hold my breath as I wish for death, oh please God wake me.” Troy experiences all of these emotions and hardships in the play “Fences” and can be correlated with one another. Through the advances of science and technology, the main characters’ bitterness towards athleticism due to struggle in Wilson’s Play, “Fences” can be seen in parallel to the song “One” written by Metallica’s James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich.
Science and technology have advanced rapidly over the last few years, especially in medicine. According to the Civil War Homepage under Civil War Medicine,
“Approximately 620,000 men-360,000 Northerners and 260,000 Southerners-died in the four-year conflict, a figure that tops the total fatalities of all other wars in which America has fought. Of these numbers, approximately 110,000 Union and 94,000 Confederate men died of wounds received in battle. Every effort was made to treat wounded men within 48 hours; most primary care was administered at field hospitals located far behind the front lines. Those who survived were then transported by unreliable and overcrowded ambulances-two-wheeled carts or four-wheeled wagons-to army hospitals located in nearby cities and towns.”
(Civil War)
Research and anthropological studies have recovered a witness’ description of the medical tent during the Civil War posted under the Civil War Homepage estimating 175,000 wounds to extremities among the Federal troops in which 30,000 led to leg amputation. ‘‘Tables about breast high had been erected upon which the screaming victims were having legs and arms cut off. The surgeons and their assistants, stripped to the waist and bespattered with blood, stood around, some holding the poor fellows while others, armed with long, bloody knives and saws, cut and sawed away with frightful rapidity, throwing the mangled limbs on a pile nearby as soon as removed” (Civil War). During this period, according to researchers and specialists of this historic field, the answer to many medical related issues, especially in battle, resulted in butchery. Of course, nothing to that degree exists in today’s medical field, although we are still evolving from what many doctors still consider barbaric.
Atul Gawande, author of National Book Award Finalist, “Complication: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science,” states the place and uncertainty of medicine and how it is constantly evolving, “Medicine is, I have found, a strange and in many ways disturbing business. The stakes are high, the liberties taken tremendous. We drug people, put needles and tubes into them, manipulate their chemistry, biology, and physics, lay them unconscious and open their bodies up to the world. We do so out of an abiding confidence in our know-how as a profession” (Gawande 4). We have evolved so much from the time we used amputation as a cure for wounds in the civil war. Gawande also says that, “What you find when you get in close, however--close enough to see the furrowed brows, the doubts and missteps, the failures as well as the successes--is how messy, uncertain and also surprising medicine turns out to be...You have a cough that won’t go away--and then? It’s not science you all upon but a doctor” (Gawande 4). It is here that Gawande explains to us that it may be an imperfect science because the medium in which science is being utilized, humans, is in fact imperfect. Gawande writes, “A doctor with good days and bad days. A doctor with a weird laugh and a bad haircut. A doctor with three other patients to see and, inevitably, gaps in what he knows and skills he’s still trying to learn” (Gawande 4). Through his explanation, Gawande sheds light on the fact that medicine, even though it has advanced greatly over time, will always be an imperfect science because, like any other person, it is the doctor utilizing the tools to help, not the science. The science itself is only imperfect because we, as humans who conduct such measures, are the limiting factor to obtainable perfection.
Another example of the imperfect science is seen in the lyrics and music video of Metallica’s song “One,” which is based off of Dalton Trumbo’s novel, “Johnny Got Your Gun.” The novel tells a story of a soldier in WWI, who had undergone the rigors of trench warfare. A land mine had hit him leaving him without sight, arms, legs, speech, hearing, and the will to live. James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich compose the song that describes medicine and its advancements and how the doctors may have replaced their morals for scientific advancements. Hetfield and Ulrich wrote, “Back in the womb its much too real, In pumps life that I must feel, But cant look forward to reveal,
Look to the time when Ill live, Fed through the tube that sticks in me, Just like a wartime novelty,
Tied to machines that make me be, Cut this life off from me” (Metallica).
Metallica describes the advanced technology in medical science for a patient that who at this point of the story is literally in a ‘in-the womb’ state. He cannot see, hear, smell, move voluntarily, or taste. Through advances in medical science, the doctors are so pleased that they are able to hook him up to tubes and machines that allow him to breath, palpitate his heart, and control blood flow properly, as well as inserted a feeding tube, but they forget how the patient may be feeling in his conscious state. Thus, the main character of this song and novel suffers from great depression as seen in the refrain of the lyrics, “Hold my breath as I wish for death, Oh please god,wake me, Now the world is gone Im just one, Oh god, help me hold my breath as I wish for death, Oh please God help me” (Metallica). This depression from the patient is seen in the lyrics written by Metallica, as his life becomes so meaningless that he begs for death due to his now unfair and mistreated life. Understanding that the main character of the song and novel had undergone much trial and suffering and fighting hurdles that he could not defeat, the main character, Troy, in the playwright “Fences,” also suffered in a similar context, but not with medically related issues.
In the city of Pittsburgh, early in the century where there was yet still a negro baseball league, Troy was a promising baseball player, but eventually left his dream to become a garbage man instead. His dream was left behind because when certain teams in the country began to allow African-Americans in the major leagues, he became too old to be drafted. August wrote in his play “Fences”, “Rose: They got a lot of colored baseball player now. Jackie Robinson was the first. Folks had to wait for Jackie Robinson” (Fences 11). Seeing himself that his time would have been much better well spent working and finding a suitable job, he struggles again to reach a desired goal. Troy wanted to know why the black men had to load the garbage into the truck while only the white men were allowed to drive the trucks. Through much fighting and bickering with his boss, eventually Troy does achieve his goal to drive the garbage truck. And like the evolution of medical science and technology, the medical world too had much struggle to gain the respect that it deserved as an art.
In conclusion, it is struggle, that is shared in the advancement of science and technology also in the same fashion as in “Fences” and “One.” It is the same struggle that Atul Gawande mentioned of medicine being an imperfect science that is constantly evolving and as we can see through example, with much struggle. Medical science suffered with the technology labeled as butchery in the civil war to now involving an art form involving drugs, machines, and precise surgeries performed with extreme care, medicine had to go through many trials to get to where it is today, just as Troy had struggled by not becoming a professional baseball player, but later succeeded by becoming the truck driver. The main character of “One” also struggles because he suffers with the fact that he himself became a scientific experiment for the sake of technological advancement in medicine. Therefore, there is one theme that links the advancement of science and technology, the main character in “One,” and the main character in “Fences”; that theme is struggle.

Works Cited

Civil War Society, . (2006). Civil War Medicine. Retrieved 18 April 2008, from Website:http://

www.civilwarhome.com/civilwarmedicine.htm.

Gawande, Atul, . Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science. ed. Vol. . New

York: Macmillan, 2003. 4.

One, director. , Metallica, ., Sweet Silence Studios, 1989.

Wilson, August, . Fences. ed. Vol. . New York: Nal Penguin Inc., 1986. 11.

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My final research is posted under August Wilson's, "Fences," because "Fences" was one of the main studies in my research. Tony's struggle for reaching some of his goals is similar to the struggle seen in the other topics discussed in my paper.

Journey in Langston Hughes’ “On The Road” and August Wilson’s “Fences”.
Webster’s defines “journey” as “a trip from one place to another – v.i. travel.” Factmonster.com defines journey as “1. Traveling from one place to another, usually taking a rather long time; trip. 2. A distance, course, or area traveled or suitable for traveling. 3. A period of travel. 4. Passage or progress from one stage to another.” I will be dealing with the latter. Great literature takes you on a journey. A journey can either move through the story or through the character’s mind. This can be seen in art, novels, poetry, and short stories. The journey does not have to be an obvious one but it will leave the reader with a sense of time and placement on both a physical and mental point of view. I will be using Langston Hughes’ “On The Road” and August Wilson’s “Fences” to show the main characters Sargeant and Troy go on mental and physical journeys in their respective stories.
In Langston Hughes’ “On the Road”, Sargeant, the main character, goes on a mental journey that seems a physical journey to the reader. Sargeant begins his journey by traveling in the snow at night in search of warmth. His effort however would prove futile. As Sargeant continues to look for shelter, he finds a minister’s home and knocks at the door but he is once again turned away. Sargeant continues his journey and finds a church that seems to glow in the night. He seeks refuge but is once again denied. His temper flairs so he tries to take matters into his own hands and through a series of events he manages to pull down the church.
As the story progresses, the main character proceeds to seek shelter as he walks with the stone Jesus that fell from the church. Somehow Jesus has become a real person to Sargeant and they continue until they part ways and Sargeant is caught trying to jump a rail car and is knocked out by a cop. Sargeant awakens in a jail cell and thinks of nothing but freedom. The reader then comes to the realization that Sargeant’s journey was mostly mental. Sargeant was knocked unconscious by a cop earlier in the story and was locked up all night. Subsequently, the entire journey following the incident of the church was all a figment of his imagination.
In August Wilson’s play, “Fences”, the main character, Troy, is a garbage worker with his best friend Bono. We see how his life is conflicted by some many underlying factors I the 1950s to 60s. "Fences” focuses on Troy as he is in the process of building the fence that Rose’ his wife asks him to build around their yard. The story opens with Troy and Bono speaking about their jobs and a young lady that the guys have been looking at. We later find out that troy has been having an affair with this woman, who’s name is Alberta. WE continue to see troy’s strained relationships with his son Corey, because Cory wants to go to college to play football. This idea is one that troy does not agree with because he feels it is a waste of time. As the story progresses the tension between the family grows until finally troy dies.
In Hughes’ short story, the journey that Sargeant goes on is a mental one. Sargeant’s mindset changes as the story progresses. He goes from seeking shelter to wanting to break down the wall doors. “‘You wait’, mumbled Sargeant, black against the jail wall. ‘I’m gonna break down this door, too’” (L. Hughes’ “On the Road”, p. 5). By this time in the story, Sargeant is no longer thinking of a physical door but he is thinking of the doors that bind societies minds, I feel that the significance of him first wanting to fulfill a physical need such as warmth, hunger, and shelter shows the beginning if his mental journey. He was not concerned with society or the things around him. All that mattered was that he was cold…

“He was not interested in snow, when he got off the freight, one early evening during the depression; Sargeant never even noticed the snow. But he must have felt it seeping down his neck, cold, wet, sopping in his shoes. But if you had asked him, he wouldn’t have known it was snowing. Sargeant didn’t see the snow, not even under the bright lights of the main street, falling white and flaky against the night. He was too hungry, too tired.” (L.Hughes’ “On the Road”, p.1)
Sargeant goes from these primal instincts of survival to rationalism of his actions. When he finds the church he knows it should be an abbey, a safe haven for those in need and instead he is shut out. This causes him to think it is time to take matters into his own hands and try to break into the church. His evolution from primal to rational can be seen when Sargeant sees the church and finally sees the snow. “For the first time that night he saw snow” (L. Hughes, p.1). From his rationalization he vows to a revolutionary mindset where he feels that it is time to get what he wants. “He pushed. With loud, rhythmic grunts” (L. Hughes, p.1). He began to break into the church. As he progressively became more determined, he was confronted by two cops who tried to pull him from the church but he still held on. He pulled down the church. This revolutionary mindset is the one that Sargeant maintains through the rest of the story. He does mellow out towards the end but his mental journey from primal and instinctive to revolutionary and fed up was completed.
In Wilson’s story, Troy goes on a more physical journey. He ages, he gets promoted, builds a fence, changes relationships and finally dies. His journey is one that spans his entire life. His mental does not change much throughout this story but he changes seamlessly physically. Throughout the play there are numerous references to baseball and how great Troy was. Bono, Troy’s friend, tells how Troy was even better than Jackie Robinson. (Act 1, Scene 1). We later find out that by the time Major League Baseball allowed blacks to play, Troy was too old. We also see changes in his status. Troy complains to Mr. Rand, his boss, about the inequality at his job. Troy later receives a job as the first black garbage truck driver. Another element that shows that Troy’s journey is one that takes place physically is the ever growing fence that Rose, his wife, asks him to build. In the beginning it is just starting and is finally completed just before the end. the final physical changes can be found in the changes in Troy’s relationships. He strains his relationship with Rose and Corey, and loses Alberta. In the end Troy never changes his mind on anything but ages and dies.
In conclusion I have found that literature takes the reader’s mind on a journey. We as readers follow the characters in their time and mental conditions and feel a sense of completion with them at the end. All stories whether they are short stories, poetry, novels, or plays, all have a sense of a journey. The journey can be one that changes setting, one that changes a state of mind or one that completely changes everything. We as readers long for a sense of connection to a piece of literature as we read it and that sense of connection comes from how well the author tells the story. Is the story one that can be related to, is it one that makes us think? As long as literature is around for enjoyment these qualities must be met. Both Hughes’ and Wilson’s characters go on journeys through the story and it is these journeys that allow for the readers to connect with these characters. Although Sargeant’s journey was mental and Troy’s was physical, they were both journeys nevertheless and being such allows for the sense of beginning and end that all journeys require.

Work Citied
Langston Hughes: “On The Road Again”
August Wilson: “Fences”. Penguin Group. Penguin Books USA inc.,375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. 1986

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I chose this blog because it my paper speaks on the correlation between August Wilson's "Fences" and "On the Road", by Langston Hughes.

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