As the sole woman throughout the majority of the play, Rose Maxson is August Wilson’s main character of Fences to represent the struggles of African American women.
When delivering her monologue in Act Two, Scene One to Troy upon hearing he has impregnated another woman, Rose showcases her feminine vulnerability and unconscious frustration towards the state of the patriarchy in 1957. In the context of mainstream womanhood in the 1950’s, Rose feels especially disgraced by Troy’s infidelity due to her loyalty as a wife conforming to the ‘Cult of Domesticity’ and the play’s transcending motif of disadvantage as an African American woman.
The Cult of Domesticity, or the Cult of True Womanhood, began its reign in the mid-nineteenth century. This movement has engaged circularly with the waves of feminism, waning as the first wave of feminists fought for the right to vote in 1920, and resurging after World War II “as Americans in particular sought a return to the idealized family life that they’d known before the war years” (Wigington). The cornerstones of true womanhood were characterized as domesticity, submissiveness, piety, and purity. Rose is intrinsically involved in this movement simply by societal pressures to become a faithful wife. Earlier in the play, she refers to her standards of marriage when reiterating how she told Troy that if he wasn’t looking to marry her, then “move out the way so the marrying kind could find me” (Wilson 1.1). However, as Fences deals with the everyday disadvantages of an African American family in the 1950’s United States, Rose illustrates the struggles and disrespect confronting an African American woman. Reading between the lines of the Cult of Domesticity movement, it is obvious that due to whitewashing in media depictions, classism of the housewife versus the working woman, and stereotyping of the black woman as aggressive and sinful, Rose can never truly achieve the secure status as a wife that she desires.
Through Rose’s monologue, August Wilson tactfully addresses the double-standard of Rose’s conformist lifestyle as a dependent woman compared to Troy’s advantage as an independent man. Before Rose responds, Troy muses that he cheated on his wife because he has felt restrained and worn out due to “standing in the same place for eighteen years” (Wilson 2.1). This leads to Rose’s monologue explaining that what Troy has viewed as a responsibility and task to remain married to her, Rose has viewed as love and loyalty to stay married for eighteen years. As Rose retorts, “I’ve been standing with you!,” she reaches an apex of clarity regarding the double-standard of her husband to neglect their marriage as she works every day to keep him satisfied.
In a related manner, Rose questions the audacity of Troy to feel he deserves a break from their marriage to enjoy the company of Alberta, who makes him “laugh out loud” and feel good.
Don’t you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good?
The gender roles of the 1950’s allowed men free sexual agency, while enforcing upon women the aforementioned virtues of true womanhood, namely purity. Even beyond this, black women conform to yet another set of standards in the overarching ‘respectability politics’ in the United States, suppressing black women to remain what white people viewed as “proper” and avoid the racist stereotypes set in place. While Troy can be sexually reckless to the point of cheating and impregnating another woman, Rose can’t even leave her house without good reason, to avoid the stereotype of the African American woman as sexually wicked.
However, in her monologue, Rose does not intend to structurally overthrow these societal norms of women as submissive. In fact, Rose commends her loyal if suppressed lifestyle in comparison to Troy’s thoughtless actions that have harmed their marriage. Rose makes reference to praying over their relationship to nourish “all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams.” We note in this statement and in several moments throughout the play that Rose receives feminine and institutional support from her involvement with the black church. Rose remains faithful in her God, in her womanhood, and to her husband. Through her piety, as the Cult of Domesticity rewards women for their respectability, Rose expects to be redeemed for the years spent with Troy; she summarizes her sense of making herself smaller in order to stand faithfully by her husband when saying, “I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom.”
Rose engages with the economic proposition of marriage when she explains to Troy that she ignored his wrongdoings for nearly two decades, “cause you was my husband. Cause that’s the only way I was gonna survive as your wife.” Thinking back to her compulsion for Troy to either be the “marrying kind” or leave, Rose has always prioritized marriage as her direct path to a happy and prosperous life. She was raised as a young girl to be a kind, trustworthy, affectionate housewife to her husband. While she refuses to give up her womanhood and personality — not always blindly agreeing with the intentions of Troy — Rose has still found herself in an area of dependency, and she becomes painfully aware of this. As Troy told Cory in Act One, Scene Three that being his father and caring for his son was simply an obligation, Rose ignores romance momentarily and admits that she feels an obligatory role as a wife to Troy in the oppressive quicksand of African American life in the 1950’s.
Rose concludes with a resonating declaration that defines Troy and countless other African American husbands in this era to the core: “You take…and don’t even know nobody’s giving.” Significantly juxtaposed with Rose’s innate sense of giving until she’s drained out of resources and love, she paints Troy as the unconcerned patriarchy, disregarding the women that have quietly and humbly held up society for centuries. Rose strikes down on Tory’s inherent privilege as a man to view his marriage as a task, while she yearns for love and recognition.
Through her monologue, Rose illuminates the broken pieces of their marriage, catalyzing Troy’s downfall towards emasculation and desperation in the final scenes of the play. While the play makes purposefully vague whether Troy ever receives clarity, Rose’s monologue is an unclouded revelation of her own feminine power through tenderness and the values of true womanhood to promote her growth into a fully-realized and independent mother and woman by the end of Fences.
Works Cited
Wigington, Patti. “Cult of Domesticity: Definition and History.” ThoughtCo, Dotdash, 14 Aug. 2019, www.thoughtco.com/cult-of-domesticity-4694493.
Wilson, August. Fences. Plume, 2016.