Question 7
AUGUST WILSON: Fences
Examine Rose as wife and mother.
Observation
This was a popular and well answered question. However, most candidates did not fully develop the character identification Rose.
The requirements of this question include the following:
- Identify the theme racial discrimination and the attempts by an African American family to survive and make progress.
- Character identification of Rose: second wife to Troy and mother to Cory and stepmother to Raynell; She’s “ten years younger than Troy”; she’s devoted to Troy.
- Rose as mother: she supports her son, Cory, in his struggle to achieve his American dream through football; she embraces and treats Lyons, her husband’s first son from another mother, more like her own son; She treats Gabby, Troy’s (crazy) brother as she would Troy.
- Rose as a wife: She’s a full-time house wife; Bono considers Rose “a good woman”; Rose forgives Troy after the baby, Raynell is born, accepts the baby and nurtures her.
- Rose’s idea of a wife and mother informs her sense of fulfilment, which captures the metaphor of the ‘Fence’ in the play
Candidates’ performance in the question was good.