Black Roses in Infertile Land: The Experience of Being a Woman in Fences (1985)

Sofía Cavaliere
Literary Translation, Universidad de Montevideo
Contemporary North American Literature
Professor Christina Taormina
June 24, 2022
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Black Roses in Infertile Land: The Experience of Being a Woman in Fences (1985)

As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.

–Virginia Woolf

As far as the riddle goes, a father and his son were in a car accident. The father died and

the son was rushed to the hospital. When he is taken in for an operation, the doctor says: I cannot

do the surgery, he is my son. How is this possible? The answer: the doctor was his mother. When

one first hears this riddle, one laughs at it because the solution is a rather simple one… but is it

really? Why is it that the first answer that comes to mind is that the doctor MUST be a man?

Why is there a lack of riddles about men working as teachers or hairdressers or secretaries? The

answer to these questions is not succinct, let alone simple and pleasant since it would require

letting the skeletons come out from the cupboard and pointing a few fingers here and there; a lot

of sensibilities would be wounded and, then again, women would be considered the sole

responsible for creating such mayhem in the world (Eve knows this wouldn’t be our first time).

But the truth is that women have always, or at least for the most part of history, played the

supporting role in this big play called ‘Life’. Men have made sure to give us enough breathing

holes so that we stay docile, playful, and silent while they set out to do big-boy stuff: invade

other countries, erect factories thanks to child labor, declare war on already oppressed minorities,

and kill species on the verge of extinction, just to mention some. It is crucial to acknowledge,

though, that women have come a long way in the conquering of rights that should have always

been ours, but this triumph is only a rather recent one.

About 70 or 80 years ago, society was still very much submerged in male-dominated

seas, and women were granted just a small bubble of air to breathe: their homes. This ideology
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was regarded as “the cult of domesticity” and it pretty much shackled them to the sphere of

domestic life and subdued them to this unattainable ideal of “the perfect wife”. A great example

of how women internalized these values can be found in Rose Maxson from the play Fences

(1985). Rose, an African-American woman married to a garbage man, embodies all the traits

expected from a trophy wife but, as oppressed by the patriarchy as she was, there seems to be a

seed of rebellion in her that is yearning to bloom.

Written by August Wilson, Fences (1985) is a literary masterpiece that deals with the

complex and intricate fabric of family relationships, addiction, racism, and forgiveness. The

main character, Troy Maxson, is a fifty-three-year-old garbage man who has two children:

Lyons, offspring of his first marriage, and Cory, his and Rose’s son. The play, although written

in the 1980s—a decade in which society had already undergone the sexual revolution of the

1960s and women were surfing the crest of third-wave feminism—, is set in the United States of

1957. During this period, the American idiosyncrasy promoted the idea that women’s role in

society was to be housewives and mothers. The Second World War had obliterated complete

cities and populations just a few years before, but these were not the only landscapes that had

changed. The underlying structures of societal order were shaken as well as the war brought

about new opportunities for women to be incorporated into the workforce as a means to

compensate for the lack of men labor in industrial factories (Martins Lamb, 2011: 15). This

situation demonstrated that female workers were more than capable of taking part in “men’s

work” and it certainly granted them unprecedented economic freedom (ibid.). But then, a white

flag was raised—or rather two atomic bombs were dropped—, men promised that they would

never allow such inhuman atrocities to be committed ever again, and women were compelled to
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go back to the kitchen. How could one go back to a pond when one had already met the vastness

of the ocean?

Many women hold onto their professional life and refused to be dragged to the

confinements of their homes; this decision triggered a response from the government and

hundreds of pro-domesticity campaigns were launched. Their aim was to encourage women to

become this husband-complaisant version of a wife and they stressed that it was the ladies’

patriotic duty to “give men their place back in the professional world” since men were the ones

who had risked their lives in the war (Martins Lamb, 2011: 16). So, the tale of the good woman

who prepared meals for her husband and children, cleaned the house, washed the dishes, and

ironed while being pretty (but not too much), intelligent (but not too much), bold (but, again, not

too much) was crafted, and girls all over the country were struggling to become this

unachievable character.

A wife was all a woman could strive to be, and that meant becoming a mother as well. As

Martins Lambs (2011) states: “People didn’t ask themselves if they were going to get married,

but when and to whom? Young women didn’t have a doubt about having babies, but simply

about how many babies they would give birth to” (14). This concept of marriage as an

internalized obligation is depicted in Rose’s words: “(…) told [Troy] if he wasn’t the marrying

kind, then move out of the way so the marrying kind could find me” (Wilson, 1985: 3). Even in

her youth, getting married was an unquestionable and definite fact.

As a wife, Rose Maxson embodies the ideal of the perfect female companion. She is

friendly and helpful to every guest in her house, she is always offering them homemade meals,

she is supportive of her husband, her child and Troy’s children as well; she is compassionate,

caring, and loving, everything a good wife should be. Because of these attributes, it could be
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argued that Rose abides by the aforementioned “cult of domesticity”. In order to have a deeper

understanding of this concept, it is convenient to define said cult. According to Wigington

(2021), “it was a philosophy in which a woman’s value was based upon her abilities to stay home

and perform the ‘duties’ of a wife and mother as well as her willingness to abide by a series of

very specific virtues.” These virtues were the axis of the perfect woman, namely, piety, purity,

domesticity, and submissiveness.

Piety was the cornerstone of the whole cult of domesticity. It was believed that women

were more pious than men by nature and, as such, it was their job to ensure that their husbands

and children followed the path of morality and virtue; if they were to fall off track, the

responsibility would be solely hers (ibid.). In Fences, Bono considers Rose to be Troy’s guide

and savior when he states: “Rose’ll keep you straight. You get off the track, she’ll straighten you

up.” (Wilson, 1985: 31). Men were the only ones that had been granted the privilege to “get off

track”; women, on the other hand, were not to defy the norms of behavior.

Another virtue expected from women was purity. Purity meant that a woman was only

worthy of love and respect if she had restrained herself from having premarital intercourse. A

lady’s value had its own unit of measurement: the male body. An honorable woman would only

allow her husband to touch her, though her husbands’ hands were endorsed to touching other

women too. Troy is the perfect example of a man who expects his wife to be loyal while he is

not:

BONO: I see where you and that Tallahassee gal… that Alberta… I see where you all

done got tight.

TROY: What you mean “got tight”?

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BONO: I see where you be laughing and joking with her all the time.

TROY: I laughs and jokes with all of them, Bono. You know me. (34)

Women were always the ones to blame for tempting men into being unfaithful; “home-

wrecker” seemed to be an adjective meant for women only. The seemingly almighty creatures

men thought themselves to be turned into a puddle of instincts that could not be controlled when

in the same room as a woman. This apparent helpless situation is also present in the play:

TROY: Hell, you know me… I wasn’t out there looking for nothing. (...) But seems like

this woman [Alberta] just stuck onto me where I can’t shake her loose. I done wrestled

with it, tried to throw her off me… but she just stuck on tighter. Now she’s stuck on for

good. (35)

Troy’s words make it seem like it was Alberta the one who tricked him into being

unfaithful, yet he falls into the muddy waters of contradiction because he had previously stated

that he “laughs and jokes with all of them”, meaning that he flirts with every woman he meets.

Women became a strange talking, walking paradox as they were both, the cheater and the

cheatee.

When it comes to domesticity as a virtue itself, this was, by far, the biggest shackle that

hindered women’s economic and intellectual emancipation. Women were deterred from

engaging in activities that required leaving the house, for these were deemed unfeminine and

unnatural since a woman’s fundamental duty was to take care of her children, her spouse, and her

home (Wigington, 2021). A lady could never indulge in the humiliating task of reading a book

other than the Bible and heaven helped her if she cooked or sewed in exchange for money (ibid.).
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Women were expected to refrain from exploring the lands of economic and intellectual

independence, lands that spread further away from the confines of the domestic sphere. The

appointed explorers and conquerors of these regions were men; they were the providers and the

hard workers. Their lack of emotion and sensibility was overlooked by their sense of greatness.

The Maxson family is structured following this very division of labor:

TROY: Woman… I do the best I can do. I come in here every Friday. I carry a sack of

potatoes and a bucket of lard. You all line up at the door with your hands out. I give you

the lint from my pockets. I give you my sweat and my blood. I ain’t got no tears. I done

spent them. (...) I get up Monday morning… find my lunch on the table. I go out. That’s

all I got to give. I can’t give nothing else (Wilson, 1985: 22)

Troy is the one that goes out to work to bring home the bread, and that is the only thing

he can do for his family. He cannot provide anything other than money: not emotional support,

advice, compassion, or understanding. These are all attitudes and values that he expects Rose to

have and make use of given that she is a woman and emotionally was considered to be a strictly

female trait.

With regards to the fourth value of the cult of domesticity, submissiveness, many critics

might argue that Rose is a submissive character. At first glance it might seem so, chiefly because

she neglected her own dreams and ambitions to marry Troy and have a family with him:

ROSE: (...) I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don’t

you think I ever wanted other things? Don’t you think I had dreams and hopes? What

about my life? What about me? Don’t you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know
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other men? (...) I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams… and I buried

them inside you (39)

She spurned everything she could have ever wanted to fulfill her role as the perfect wife

—”I done tried to be everything a wife should be” (38)—, something which she considers to be a

job rather than a pleasant union between two people drunk in love. Nonetheless, it is of

paramount importance to contextualize the period she was living in and the opportunities it

offered to African-American women; only then it can be understood that Rose was just another

victim of a far longer tradition of oppression.

Women, as it has been stated above, were completely excluded from the work sphere in

society. This meant that they were entirely dependent on their husbands to cover their basic

needs and, just as important, to maintain their social status as being a maiden was considered not

only humiliating, but also the irrefutable evidence of failure. Furthermore, during the 1950s

racism was still at its peak: this meant that if finding a job as a woman was already hard (and

frowned upon), finding a job as a black woman was twice as difficult.

The oppression of women is a historical and systematic fact. According to

Virginia Woolf (1929), this oppression stems from men’s overwhelming necessity for self-

confidence, a need that can be easily met if one is to think that other people are inferior to

oneself (21). As Woolf states: “Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses

possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.

(...) if [women] were not inferior, [men] would cease to enlarge” (ibid.). Rose serves as Troy’s

mirror; she is the element that distorts and magnifies the projection of his persona. As an

example, when Troy is recounting how he and Rose got married, he adopts a rather arrogant

attitude and portrays himself as a cold, careless Casanova whose main interest is baseball:
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TROY: And I told her, “Baby, it’s you and baseball all what count with me.” You

hear me, Bono? I meant it too. She say, “Which one comes first?” I told her,

“Baby, ain’t no doubt it’s baseball… but you stick and get old with me and we’ll

both outlive this baseball.” Am I right, Rose? And it’s true. (Wilson, 1985: 30)

What Troy is basically expressing is that a sport is more valuable to him than his own

wife. This appalling comment exposes how Troy is trying to present himself as a true macho

man by diminishing his feelings toward Rose. The person he is actually trying to impress in this

dialogue is Bono, another man.

In regard to submission as a desirable trait in a woman, as submissive as Rose might

seem, she is somewhat a protofeminist character. Throughout the play, she embarks on the

journey of breaking free from the silence she was supposed to keep, something significantly

rebellious if one is to consider that she is going against the status quo of her time. It is not known

whether this revolutionary attitude is the result of a conscious decision, but what is certain is that

she does not conform to the social norm.

In Act 1, Scene Four, Troy calls Rose because he wants her to join him and Bono in the

backyard and, as Rose does not immediately go with them, he adds: “You supposed to come

when I call you, woman. Bono’ll tell you that. (To BONO.) Don’t Lucille come when you call

her?” (24). It is evident that he expects a wife to follow the commands of her husband, yet Rose

will not abide by this mandate as she replies back: “Man, hush your mouth. I ain’t no dog… talk

about “come when you call me” (ibid.). Through these words, she is reasserting her intrinsic

value as a person, not as a mere extension of her husband, or worse, a dehumanized person that

relates more to animals than to humans.

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There is another situation in which Rose goes a step even further and inverts the roles of

commander and commandee. As opposed to her, Troy does not want Cory to follow his dream of

becoming a professional baseball player. The decision of whether to let him do so or not is the

source of several of their quarrels and, still, Rose continues to be firmly rooted in her stance on

supporting her son. This unshakeable conviction is what fuels the subversion of the positions of

power: “And next week… when that recruiter come from that school… I want you to sign that

paper and go on and let Cory play football. Then that’ll be the last I have to hear about that” (28).

Nonetheless, the greatest demonstration of the feminist attitude that is thriving in her is

her response to Troy’s cheating confession. Through a heartfelt monologue, she vomits the utter

pain and disappointment she has been enduring during her marriage with Troy, a marriage in

which she has had to put herself aside in the hope that, by doing so, their relationship would

bloom and provide her with all the things she needed—but Troy’s selfish attitude is the hard,

rocky soil which prevents it from doing so. Even though the content of the monologue can still

be placed under the realm of the cult of domesticity, the sheer fact that she was brave enough to

expose her truth and defy Troy’s role as a husband is the reason why Rose can and should be

considered a protofeminist character. Moreover, her name itself is another argument that

supports this reading.

Roses are flowers usually associated with romanticism and love. At the same time,

flowers have historically symbolized fragility, delicateness, and beauty. Since Rose is an

African-American woman, it could be argued that she represents black roses, a type of rose that

is tied to mourning and death (Almanac, 2022). This seems to paint a negative scenario, but it is

actually the opposite: the death of something also means the birth of something new. In the play,

Troy’s death brings about a new start for Rose: a new start in which she gets to pursue her
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dreams, meet other men, have economic independence—in short, a start in which she can

explore what it means to be truly happy. That is why a black rose, in this context, is the symbol

of hope.

Despite the fact that Rose willingly conformed to the cult of domesticity—a cult crafted

by men who were scared of women’s full potential—and strived to be the perfect wife, her life

was insipid. The pain that this caused her was the timber that fueled the little campfires of

rebellion that were unleashed here and there. Rose has still a long way to go before she can fully

emancipate herself from the chains of female oppression, but she is moving in the right direction,

towards a fertile land where she can fully bloom.

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Bibliography
Almanac. (2022). Flower Meanings: The Language of Flowers. Retrieved from Almanac:
https://www.almanac.com/flower-meanings-language-flowers
Martins Lamb, V. (2011). The 1950's and the 1960's and the American Woman: the transition
from the "housewife" to the feminist. Retrieved from DUMAS:
https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-00680821/document
Wigington, P. (2021). The Cult of Domesticity: Definition and History. Retrieved from
ThoughtCo: https://www.thoughtco.com/cult-of-domesticity-4694493
Wilson, A. (1985). Fences. Retrieved from Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/WilsonFences
Woolf, V. (1929). A Room of One's Own. Retrieved from School of English and American
Studies: http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/PikliNatalia/Virginia_Woolf_-
_A_Room_of_Ones_Own.pdf
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