August Wilson Literary Devices

Troy Maxson and Levee are both characters from August Wilson plays. Troy was the Character from Fences and Levee was the character from Ma Rainey’s black bottom. “Fences is a story of Troy Maxson and his family who struggle to cope with the changes” (BEŞE). In America, in the late 50s, August Wilson created these characters to reflect on how difficult things were for African American males and their families. Wilson also creates a narrative structure which dramatizes each character role in these plays. In these plays, Troy and Levee struggled with something that made the characters relate to people in the real world. Troy who wanted to be a baseball star and Levee who wanted to be a musician dealt with their dreams being rejected because of …show more content…
In Troy’s past, his father had an important negative impact on why he reacted to every situation the way he did. Troy father wanted to control his life and they ended up getting into a fight which caused Troy to move out on his own. However Troy found himself in the same situation with his son, Troy did not want his son to go to college to play football because he felt as if his son was just wasting his time but Troy didn’t want to face the fact that things have changed and wanted his son to know that he would just be wasting his time. “The major leagues are now integrated, and Troy shows his bitterness and inability to adjust by verbally deriding the abilities of the Negro players. The animosity engendered by his past spills over into his relationship with his son, Cory. It is this relationship that involves the most significant interaction between past and present in the play” (Young). Troy also dealt with the issue of being a different skin color; Troy was a great baseball player and couldn’t live out his dream because of his skin color. Some of the other characters in the story agreed that Troy was and excellent ball player and could’ve been a great player but blacks weren’t able to get into the …show more content…
His past was a lot different from Troy’s. In Levee’s past, he witnessed his mother being assaulted by white men and he was mutilated across his chest with a knife trying to defend her. When this incident occurred levee was only eight years only. Levee Father sold land to the men that assaulted his mother and his father went after them the inflict harm for hurting his wife and they ended up killing his father. From this point, Levee felt like everything was being controlled by these people around him. “Levee declares his identity through his music which is a career that he would love to pursue” (Kiffer). Levee thinks that music will make his advancement in a world where blacks are dominated by the white culture. Levee worked for Ma Rainey a famous musician and had no say so on any songs that they recorded. Levee thought that through the absence of Ma Rainey he could possibly get the recording session to go his way. Soon after Ma Rainey return Levee was fired and only could try to pursue his music career through the white studio