August wilson fences pdf full text

Got a little bit of Indian in her. Most of them niggers down in Florida got some Indian in them. Woman wear some big stockings. Got them great big old legs and hips as wide as the Mississippi River.

TROY Legs don't mean nothing. But them hips cushion the ride! BONO Troy, you ain't got no sense. Like you riding on Goodyears! ROSE enters from the house. She is ten years younger than TROY, her devotion to him stems from her recognition of the possibilities of her life without him: a succession of abusive men and their babies, a life of partying and running the streets, the Church, or aloneness with its attendant pain and frustration. She recognizes TROY's spirit as a fine and illuminating one and she either ignores or forgives his faults, only some of which she recognizes.

Though she doesn't drink, her presence is an integral part of the Friday night rituals. She alternates between the porch and the kitchen, where supper preparations are under way. ROSE What you all out here getting into? TROY What you worried about what we getting into for?

This is men talk, woman. Bono, you gonna stay for supper? But Lucille say she cooking up a pot of pigfeet. TROY Pigfeet! Hell, I'm going home with you! Might even stay the night if you got some pigfeet. You got something in there to top them pigfeet, Rose? I got some chicken and collard greens. This is men talk. I got some talk for you later. You know what kind of talk I mean. You go on and powder it up.

TROY Puts his arm around her. Aw, woman. Look here, Bono. I got out that place, say, "Hitch up my pony, saddle up my mare. I looked here. Looked there. Saw Rose and latched on to her. ROSE I told him if he wasn't the marrying kind, then move out the way so the marrying kind could find me. TROY That's what she told me. You blocking the view! Move out the way so I can find me a husband.

You was back the same night. TROY Come back, told her. Troy ain't doing nothing but telling a lie. TROY Only thing is. BONO I hear you tell it. Me and Lucille was staying down there on Logan Street. Had two rooms with the outhouse in the back. I ain't mind the outhouse none. But when that goddamn wind blow through there in the winter. To this day I wonder why in the hell I ever stayed down there for six long years.

But see, I didn't know I could do no better. I thought only white folks had inside toilets and things. That's just something you got to learn. A lot of folks still shop at Bella's. She got fresh food. ROSE I ain't said nothing about if she got fresh food.

I'm talking about what she charge. I spends my money where I'm treated right. I go down to Bella, say, "I need a loaf of bread, I'll pay you Friday. What sense that make when I got money to go and spend it somewhere else and ignore the person who done right by me?

That ain't in the Bible. What sense it make to shop there when she overcharge? TROY You shop where you want to. I'll do my shopping where the people been good to me. That's all I was saying.

BONO Look here I got to get on. Lucille going be raising all kind of hell. TROY Where you going, nigger? We ain't finished this pint. Come here, finish this pint. TROY Hands him the bottle. Help him take care of his school clothes and things. Gabe done moved out and things getting tight around here. He got that job. He can start to look out for himself. ROSE Cory done went and got recruited by a college football team.

TROY I told that boy about that football stuff. The white man ain't gonna let him get nowhere with that football. I told him when he first come to me with it. Now you come telling me he done went and got more tied up in it. He ought to go and get recruited in how to fix cars or something where he can make a living. ROSE He ain't talking about making no living playing football. They gonna send a recruiter by to talk to you. He'll tell you he ain't talking about making no living playing football.

It's a honor to be recruited. TROY It ain't gonna get him nowhere. Bono'll tell you that. BONO If he be like you in the sports. Ain't but two men ever played baseball as good as you.

Them's the only two men ever hit more home runs than you. TROY What it ever get me? Ain't got a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. That was before the war. Times have changed a lot since then. TROY How in hell they done changed? ROSE They got lots of colored boys playing ball now. Baseball and football. Times have changed, Troy. You just come along too early. TROY There ought not never have been no time called too early!

Now you take that fellow. You know who I'm talking about, Bono. Used to play right field for the Yankees. ROSE Selkirk? TROY Selkirk! That's it! Man batting. What kind of sense that make? I was hitting.

I saw Josh Gibson's daughter yesterday. She walking around with raggedy shoes on her feet. Now I bet you Selkirk's daughter ain't walking around with raggedy shoes on her feet! I bet you that! ROSE They got a lot of colored baseball players now. Jackie Robinson was the first. Folks had to wait for Jackie Robinson. Hell, I know some teams Jackie Robinson couldn't even make! What you talking about Jackie Robinson.

Jackie Robinson wasn't nobody. I'm talking about if you could play ball then they ought to have let you play. Don't care what color you were.

Come telling me I come along too early. If you could play. TROY takes a long drink from the bottle. ROSE You gonna drink yourself to death.

You don't need to be drinking like that. TROY Death ain't nothing. I done seen him. Done wrassled with him. You can't tell me nothing about death. Death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner. Lookee here, Bono You get one of them fastballs, about waist high, over the outside corner of the plate where you can get the meat of the bat on it.

You can kiss it goodbye. Now, am I lying? BONO Naw, you telling the truth there. I seen you do it. That's all death is to me. A fastball on the outside corner. ROSE I don't know why you want to get on talking about death. TROY Ain't nothing wrong with talking about death. That's part of life. Everybody gonna die.

You gonna die, I'm gonna die. Bono's gonna die. Hell, we all gonna die. TROY You the one brought it up. Me and Bono was talking about baseball. I'm gonna drink just enough to where I can handle it. Then I cuts it loose. I leave it alone. So don't you worry about me drinking myself to death. I done wrestled with him. Look here, Bono I looked up one day Death was marching straight at me.

Like Soldiers on Parade! The Army of Death was marching straight at me. The middle of July, It got real cold just like it be winter. It seem like Death himself reached out and touched me on the shoulder.

He touch me just like I touch you. I got cold as ice and Death standing there grinning at me. ROSE Troy, why don't you hush that talk. TROY I say. What you want, Mr. You be wanting me? You done brought your army to be getting me? I looked him dead in the eye.

I wasn't fearing nothing. I was ready to tangle. Just like I'm ready to tangle now. The Bible say be ever vigilant. That's why I don't get but so drunk. I got to keep watch. You remember he had pneumonia? Laying there with a fever talking plumb out of his head. TROY Death standing there staring at me. Finally he say, "You want bound over for another year? Let's settle this now! I reached down and grabbed - 14 - that sickle and threw it just as far as I could throw it. We wrestled for three days and three nights.

Every time it seemed like he was gonna get the best of me, I'd reach way down deep inside myself and find the strength to do him one better. Different things to make up about it.

TROY I ain't making up nothing. I'm telling you the facts of what happened. I wrestled with Death for three days and three nights and I'm standing here to tell you about it.

At the end of the third night we done weakened each other to where we can't hardly move. Death stood up, throwed on his robe. He throwed on that robe and went off to look for his sickle. Say, "I'll be back. I wasn't going looking for him. Death ain't nothing to play with. And I know he's gonna get me. I know I got to join his army But as long as I keep my strength and see him coming I ain't going easy. BONO Well, look here, since you got to keep up your vigilance I should have left out that part.

ROSE Troy be talking that stuff and half the time don't even know what he be talking about. I know you got some Uncle Remus in your blood. You got more stories than the devil got sinners. Done talked with the devil. ROSE Troy, don't nobody wanna be hearing all that stuff. LYONS enters the yard from the street.

Thirty-four years old, TROY's son by a previous marriage, he sports a neatly trimmed goatee, sport coat, white shirt, tieless and buttoned at the collar. Though he fancies himself a musician, he is more caught up in the rituals and "idea" of being a musician than in the actual practice of the music.

He has come to borrow money from TROY , and while he knows he will be successful, he is uncertain as to what extent his lifestyle will be held up to scrutiny and ridicule. He kisses her. How you doing? TROY He must have been doing alright. I ain't seen him around here last week.

ROSE Troy, leave your boy alone. He come by to see you and you wanna start all that nonsense. Offers him the bottle. We got an understanding. I know why he come by to see me and he know I know. I just stopped by to say hi. TROY You ain't stopped by yesterday. I got some chicken cooking in the oven. I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by for a minute. TROY You was in the neighborhood alright, nigger.

You telling the truth there. You was in the neighborhood cause it's my payday. TROY I'll be damned! I'll die and go to hell and play blackjack with the devil before I give you ten dollars. Pop done seen the devil? You too much, Pops. Talked to him too! ROSE You ain't seen no devil. I done told you that man ain't had nothing to do with the devil. Anything you can't understand, you want to call it the devil. I went down to see Hertzberger about some furniture. Got three rooms for two-ninety-eight.

Go down there. What to do? I got an empty house with some raggedy furniture in it. Cory ain't got no bed. He's sleeping on a pile of rags on the floor. Working every day and can't get no credit.

Come back here — Rose'll tell you — madder than hell. Sit down. Come a knock on the door. Ain't been living here but three days. Who know I'm here? Open the door. White fellow Standing there with a clipboard in his hand. I ain't had to say nothing. First words come out of his mouth was He say "I'll give you all the credit you want, but you got to pay the interest on it. Man what drove the truck give me a book. Say send ten dollars, first of every month to the address in the book and everything will be alright.

Say if I miss a payment the devil was coming back and it'll be hell to pay. That was fifteen years ago. To this day ROSE Troy lying. TROY I ain't never seen that man since. Now you tell me who else that could have been but the devil?

I ain't sold my soul or nothing like that, you understand. Naw, I wouldn't have truck with the devil about nothing like that. I got my furniture and pays my ten dollars the first of the month just like clockwork. TROY Fifteen years! How much the man done charged you. I done paid for it ten times over! We got that furniture from Mr. TROY Aw hell, woman. Somebody has got to give it. ROSE It ought to matter. You going around talking about having truck with the devil.

God's the one you gonna have to answer to. He's the one gonna be at the Judgment. Bonnie got a job working at the hospital. The only time I see this nigger is when he wants something.

That's the only time I see him. Bono don't want to hear all that. Let me have the ten dollars. I told you Bonnie working. TROY What that mean to me? Go ask her for the ten dollars if she - 19 - working. Talking about "Bonnie working. Where am I gonna get a job at? You know I can't get no job. I can get you on the rubbish if you want to work. I told you that the last time you came by here asking me for something.

That ain't for me. I don't wanna be carrying nobody's rubbish. TROY What's the matter, you too good to carry people's rubbish? Where you think ten dollars you talking about come from? I'm just supposed to haul people's rubbish and give my money to you cause you too lazy to work. You too lazy to work and wanna know why you ain't got what I got. I give you that ten dollars and I got to eat beans the rest of the week. I don't know why you wanna say that.

TROY I ain't got no extra money. Gabe done moved over to Miss Pearl's paying her the rent and things done got tight around here.

I can't afford to be giving you every payday. I asked you to loan me ten dollars. I know you got ten dollars. You know why I got it? Cause I don't throw my money away out there in the streets. You living the fast life. You ain't gonna find me going and asking nobody for nothing. I done spent too many years without. TROY I done learned my mistake and learned to do what's right by it.

You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don't owe you nothing. You owe it to yourself. Ask Bono. He'll tell you I'm right. I got mine. The only thing that matters to me is the music.

It don't matter how you gonna eat. But I got to live too. I need something that gonna help me to get out of the bed in the morning. Make me feel like I belong in the world. I don't bother nobody. I just stay with my music cause that's the only way I can find to live in the world. Otherwise there ain't no telling what I might do. I just come by to ask you for ten dollars. TROY Boy, your mama did a hell of a job raising you.

I'm thirty-four years old. If you wanted to change me, you should have been there when I was growing up. I come by to see you. You don't know nothing about how I was raised. What the hell you looking at me for?

I ain't got no ten dollars. You know what I do with my money. To ROSE. Give him ten dollars if you want him to have it. ROSE I will. Just as soon as you turn it loose. There it is. Seventy-six dollars and forty-two cents. You see this, Bono? Now, I ain't gonna get but six of that back. Like all of the "Pittsburgh" plays, Fences explores the evolving African-American experience and examines race relations, among other themes.

Wife to Bono, Lucille barely appears in the play. Bono always cites her as the reason why he must go home—why he must depart from the Maxson household when he visits.

In this way, Lucille reveals. House of Representatives, th Congress, 2nd Session. Our study guide has summaries, insightful analyses, and everything else you need to understand Fences. Buy Now on greggdev. Visit greggdev. August Wilson, author of Fences is one of my favorites. My original copy of this book is missing. So I Fences book this one as a replacement.

Fences book recommend that everyone who enjoys a film based on a play, should also have a copy of the book if you also collect or view the film on a large greggdev. Man what drove the truck give me a book. Say send ten dollars, first of every month to the address in the book and everything will be all right.

That was fifteen years ago. User Review - Flag as inappropriate I sincerlly liked the book fences. Fences is divided into two acts. Act One is comprised of four scenes and Act Two has five. Students work in pairs to review all primary sources photos and manuscripts listed under materials in the lesson plan.

The text of the play will be read after sessions two and three. Together students will make notes in response to the primary sources: Guiding questions for photo notes: Describe what you see. What is the context and audience of the photo? What do you wonder about? Guiding questions for manuscripts, articles, and web museum visit: What does the text say?

Who is the intended audience? What do we learn and wonder about? Session Two: K. Watch you tube video clips 1.