Troy Maxson

• Troy is a hardworking middle-aged family man. He has a commanding presence and a big personality. He is an African American; the main character, the protagonist of the play; works for the sanitation department as a garbage man and later a driver. He is also a talented baseball player. Troy is a responsible man whose thwarted dreams make him prone to believing in self-created illusions. FENCES is largely Troy’s story. What all the play’s characters have in common is a complicated relationship with Troy. Troy’s character creates the large and small conflicts with everyone else in FENCES.
• He is married to Rose, father to Lyons, Cory’s and Raynell, and brother to Gabriel. Lives with his wife, Rose, and son, Cory, in the Hill District of Pittsburgh.
• He is funny, provocative, inspiring, and helpful but one thing he will never be, as long as he draws breath, is silent.
• He had a rough childhood and left home at age 14. He was an excellent baseball player and might have had the skill to play in the major leagues if he hadn’t spent his prime years in prison.
• Troy plays the dominant role in his over thirty-year friendship with follow sanitation worker, Jim Bono.
• Although Troy loves his wife, Rose, he has an affair with Alberta, who become pregnant.
• Troy Maxson is a classically tragic hero. He begins the play loved, admired, and getting away with his secret affair. But eventually, Troy’s death leaves many negative attributes as an inheritance for his family to sort out and accept.