On The African American Masculine Lies In Wilson’s Fences

African American playwright August Wilson’s Fences is a classic play with a male character as the core of the storyline.The play’s plot spans a half-century of time.It shows the world audiences the differences that African American men of different generations showed in dealing with their relationship with society before the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement in the 20^th century.Their acts are not only the determined choices made by African American men in the face of the harsh realities of the world,but also an expression of their belief in masculinities.The pursuit of masculinities by the African American male characters in the play not only provides the narrative tension for the play,but also provides a prototype for the African American masculinities studies.This thesis bases on previous research on the construction of male subjectivities in patriarchal systems to investigate the three ways in which African American masculinities are constructed in this play:violence,indifference,and tolerance;and to explore the reasons for the formation of these ways and the harm and oppression they cause to African American men.The thesis is divided into five parts:in the introduction,the thesis reviews the existing research base and clarifies the relevance of the play Fences to the studies of African American masculinities;in the first part,the thesis analyses the verbal violence,robbery and resistance of African American males in the play,pointing out the futility of their construction of masculinities through violence and the harm that violence brings to the African American people;in the second part,the thesis explores the coolness the African American men showed,finds the reasons for these indifferent manifestations in the upbringing of African American males,and exposes the harm posed to African American males by patriarchal ideologies of misogyny and the damage inflicted on the unity of the ethnic group;the third part focuses on the persistence of African American males in their beliefs about manhood when faced with tragedy,and finds that their beliefs about masculinities are in fact deceptive.In the conclusion,the essay reveals that the masculinities pursued by the male characters in the play are merely lies,and that distorted African American masculinities are the products of the combined effects of white supremacy and patriarchy.Exposing masculinity’s clichés will enable African American men to avoid the pitfalls within unequal power relations and find their own ethnic beliefs about masculinities.