From legendary playwright August Wilson comes the powerful, stunning dramatic bestseller that won him critical acclaim, including the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize.  Troy Maxson is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less. This is a modern classic, a book that deals with the impossibly difficult themes of race in America, set during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.

Big Ideas

• Our identities (and how they intersect) have a large impact on the amount of agency we have in our lives. 

• Our life experiences inform what we think we deserve.

• A society’s communicated beliefs and values around race and gender impact what we think we deserve. 

• Writers use figurative language to help convey their theme. 

• Writers use monologues to advance their plot and develop character.  

• Monologues often convey the urgency of a problem the speaker is facing. This urgency creates tension.