Is Troy Maxon a Tragic Hero? Analysis of August Wilson's The Fence

This essay analyzes the character of Troy Maxon in August Wilson's The Fence to determine whether he fits the criteria of a tragic hero. The essay explores the concept of a tragic hero and evaluates Troy's character traits and actions in the play. The conclusion is that Troy is not a tragic hero, as he lacks the necessary characteristics and fails to elicit pity or fear from the audience.

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Is Troy Maxon a Tragic Hero?
The “fence” is an American drama by August Wilson featuring Troy Maxon as the
protagonist. Troy was once a base ball player but did not get to play the Major League Baseball
reason been he was a black American. He later works as a garbage collector in Pittsburg where
he becomes the first black man to be a driver. Troy can be seen as an arrogant and proud man
from the way he treats his friend Rono and his family; Rose, Cory, Lyon and Gabriel. The essay
is going to focus on Troy Maxon character to find out whether he is a tragic hero or not.
A tragic hero to begin with is a man of noble birth with greatness in him. He holds a great
position mostly a prince or a duke. In the “fence”, Troy has no such characteristics. He is just an
ordinary man leading an ordinary life. His name itself suggests that he is not of a high position
(Haque and Chowdhury 115). This is seen through the job he has that is; he is a waste collector
who gets promoted to the position of a driver later. He has been to jail due to robbery also and
this shows no nobility. There is no mention of his virtual in the play.
Troy Maxon life is not as happy as we could have imagined. He was never satisfied on
how he lived. He had not been able to get a chance to play baseball as he wanted because he was
black. According to Aristotle a tragic hero must have lived a happy life before his miserable end
(de Cykman 131). Maxon life was miserable from the beginning up to the end.

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A tragic hero suffers from hamartia. By this it means that the hero suffers from a serious
error or misfortune which he was not aware of. In the “fence”, Troy does not suffer from
anything that he did not know. He was aware he was doing the wrong thing when he cheated on
his wife Rose and even his friend Rono warned him to stop seeing Alberta but he did not listen.
He did not fail justice as tragic hero does (Ahrensdorf 175). He understood perfectly well
everything he did to his wife, children and brother (Nouri 13).
A hero is someone who is not supposed to be superior or inferior. He is just like any other
human being (Nouri 12). In the case of Troy, he feels like he is superior to everybody. He wants
to do anything that he wishes without being questioned by anyone. This pushes him to get into a
fight with his son Cory as he does not want him to play in football team and it could have given
him a scholarship to college.
The suffering that Troy goes through is not beyond his control as it is supposed to be with
tragic heroes. Mostly “the incidents of tragedy are often beyond the hero's control or not closely
related to his personality" (Samar 88), He could have been able to put his life in order to avoid
his downfall if he wanted to but instead he choose to selfish and arrogant.

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Troy is not ready to put down his life of pride in order to maintain his dignity. He is a
proud man who runs away from his family when things became sour and bitter. According to
Arthur Miller hero becomes tragic when he is “ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure
one thing – his sense of personal dignity” (Miller 1462).
Aristotle describes a tragic hero as someone who suffers more than he deserves but in the
case of Troy, his sufferings are not enough to pay for the things he has done. His brother for
instance is almost homeless in his mental condition yet he is the one who got payment from the
government to support his mentally ill brother. Troy’s brother goes to the extent of selling fruits
in the street whereas Troy should be taking care of him.
Troy lacks intelligence too and this is another important character of a tragic hero. He
does not learn from his mistakes that he commits. He continues to commit one mistake after the
other. In fact, he turns out to be like his father who hated. He is does not support his sons so that
they can fulfill their dreams because he failed to play baseball.

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At the end, Troy does not have difficulties on deciding on what to do; he thinks of
himself to be right in every decision he makes therefore tragedy was Troy’s results to evaluate
his justice (Miller 149). He is no hero to his family or friends. He is proud of himself without
achievement. He is a failure as husband, father and as a friend.
As for pity and fear for Troy Maxon, there is none after all the things he did to his poor
wife Rose although he loves her (Wilson 36). Alberta dies while giving birth to his daughter but
she was not supposed to pay for Troy’s mistakes. She should have lived to bring up her daughter.
His son Cory loses his scholarship due to Troy’s attitude towards black people playing football
with white. Troy does not deserve to be pitted or felt mercy for. That is what he deserved; to die
alone.
In conclusion, not all protagonist actors are tragic hero and in this case Troy Maxon was
one of those few actors. He died a lonely death because he wanted to be alone. He was too proud
to even apologize to his wife Rose for cheating on her with Alberta. He knew he was going to be
forgiven even without any remorseful as Rose loved him. She even raised his daughter who was
born out of that love affair. He might have some tragic events happening in his life but he was
not a hero in any way right from the being to the end.

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Works cited
Ahrensdorf, Peter J. Greek tragedy and political philosophy: rationalism and religion in
Sophocles' Theban plays. Cambridge University Press 2009
De Cykman, Avital Grubstein. "Claire Archer: A Tragic Heroine on the Verge." Revista Estudos
Anglo-Americanos 47.1 (2018): 120-136.
Haque, Md Ziaul and Fahmida, Kabir Chowdhury. "The Concept of Blindness in Sophocle’s
King Oedipus and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman." International Journal of Applied
Linguistics and English Literature 2.3 (2013): 112-119.
Miller, Arthur. “Tragedy and the Common Man” Discovering Literature Hans, Guth P. and
Gabriele, Rico L. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993. 1461-1464, Print.
Miller, Arthur. Tragedy and the Common Man, 1965
Nouri, Yasaman. "Devdas, the Aristotelian Tragic Hero of Indian Literature: A Case Study."
2016.
Samar, Sen. Aristotle's Poetics: A Critical Evaluation. New Delhi: Unique Publishers 2014.
Wilson, August Fences Literature: an introduction to fiction, poetry, drama and writing.
X. J. Kennedy and Diana, Gioia, 12th Ed. New York: Pearson, 2013 1153-63.