In the tradition of tragic heroes such as Oedipus Rex, Willie Loman, and Marcus Brutus, Troy Maxson from August Wilson's Fences is a noble man with a tragic flaw that leads him down a path ending in ruin. Troy's hamartia is his stubborn, self-centeredness. He lives in his own little world and views the people in his life as revolving around him. When he ruins Cory's chance of gaining a football scholarship, he did it because he believed whites wouldn't let his son play, but the world had changed and Troy stubbornly refused to believe it. It has to be noted that Troy Maxson isn't a bad man. His actions and speech may come off as cruel and callous but he also has admirable and likeable qualities. He is firmly responsible in his duty towards his family as a provider. He is funny and passionate and listening to him tell stories is hypnotizing. And deep beneath his tough exterior is a man who truly cares about his family but never learnt the right way to show it. The tragedy is that his family only learns about this after until his death and after the negative actions he did that tore his family apart.
Out of all the characters Troy interacts with in the play and affects, Troy's relationship with his son Cory is the best example of how his delusional worldview causes misery for the ones he loves. Cory is enthusiastic over being chosen for a football scholarship. Like his dad, Cory loves to play sports, and this scholarship is his chance to go to college. Troy, however, is hell-bent against Cory playing football. One of the biggest causes of disappointment in Troy's life is the fact that he couldn't play professional baseball. Though he was a talented baseball player in the Negro leagues, he couldn't ascend to the major leagues because of racial discrimination. Troy refuses to let his son suffer the same disappointing outcome, so he refuses to sign his permission paper and prevents the college recruiter from visiting.
All the people around Troy try to make him realize that the times are changing, and that Cory has more a chance than he of attaining his dream. Troy's wife Rose tries to inform him, "They got lots of colored boys playing ball now. Baseball and football." Even his friend Bono says, "Times have changed, Troy, you just come along too early." Cory names some current black baseball players to his father, like Hank Aaron. Troy ignores this and says to his son, "The white man ain't gonna let you get nowhere with that football noway." Cory blames his father of doing this out of resentment, saying, "You just scared I'm gonna be better than you, that's all." But Troy says to Rose, "I got sense enough not to let my boy get hurt playing no sports." It seems that Troy puts an end to Cory's football dream out of both his own disappointment and his desire to protect his boy. It's these wrestling of movies inside Troy that make him a complex and tragic character.
That complexity of Troy also manifests from the good and admirable qualities of his personality. Throughout the play it's easy to feel anger, pity, and respect towards him. Even though Troy pursues the wrong course in trying to help Cory, it's still apparent that he cares for his son in his fractured way. Troy's bad relationship with his son can be traced back to his own relationship with his father. Troy despised his father, who was mean and didn't show any love to him, but kept by his family due to a sense of responsibility, which is molded into Troy's character. He goes to work everyday to provide for his family even though, but he can't express the love to them that they crave. Without his good qualities to counterbalance against his bad ones, Troy would just be an evil antagonists intentionally ruining his families lives. But because Troy is made as a tragic hero we can learn more about the experience of living life as a black man, faced with lost opportunities due to discrimination and we can learn a lesson from his failure instead of paint him as a monster.
Troy's hamartia prevents him from acknowledging that times have changed. Like Oedipus Rex who came before him, he refuses to see the writing on the wall. Instead of believing what everyone around him is saying, he chooses to follow his own course of action, based on his delusions. Instead of allowing his son to pursue football and college, he destroys his dreams. Because of his actions, he builds not just a fence but an impenetrable wall around himself, never opening up to his family. Only at his funeral do his family attain knowledge of his deeper motives and obstacles despite his harmful actions. As Lyons says, "You got to take the crookeds with straights. That's what Papa used to say." This tragic case of hamartia simultaneously destroys his chance of a happy life with his family and opens up a spot for Troy in the long line of tragic heroes.
