Troy Maxson is a character who is both “larger than life” and “small” at the same time. His imaginative flights of fancy, fighting Death for three days, fooling the devil, are humorous and engaging anecdotes that tell us something about a man whose dreams are always larger than his world permits. Troy is keenly sensitive to the racial inequities in his life, and he takes whatever small steps he can to try to rectify those injustices –for example, he fights hard to become a “driver,” and he wins (the irony there is that he doesn’t even know how to drive!) — but back of all of those strident, loud, proclamations, there is a sense of powerlessness. Troy is haunted by his past, and he brings that past into his present (as most people, sometimes sadly, do). He is both admirable and pathetic, both the best and worst of men.
Do you agree?
