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Borders, walls, and fences exist to show that two things are separate, and to keep them that way. When August Wilson wrote his play, Fences, he was writing a play about the things that keep people apart. Fences is about separation, the separations between different colors, of man and wife, life and death, and of generation to generation. These separations are illustrated thorough the members of a black family in 1957. The father of the family, …

…slowly ending, as Troy does manage to get the promotion that he wanted, but only with persistence does he manage to finally close the gap. Throughout the play, the character of Troy helps August Wilson explore a number of different kinds of separation. He explores separation by race, separation by generation, the separation between man and wife, the separation of one generation to the next, and of course, the separation between the life and death.