Is Troy a tragic figure, a hero, or a villain?

    In my opinion Troy in the short play fences plays the role of the subtle villain. Throughout the book Troy expects a lot out of his sons and part of the reasoning behind his justifications for doing so comes from his own childhood. In particular Troy’s relationship with his son Cory best exemplifies this aspect of his person. Cory wanted to become a professional football player and make a career out of it. In most situations if the kid is good enough most parents would encourage such dreams or at the very least be happy for their children’s passion towards such a huge life choice. Instead Troy goes out of his way to destroy Cory’s dreams. Even though Cory was doing everything that Troy mandated him to do in order for him to be allowed to continue playing football Troy went and got him taken off of the team’s roster. The expectations that Troy set for Cory were supposedly based off of his own childhood and upbringing however it's not really clear whether or not Troy lied or exaggerated about almost everything that he said. An example of this is when he described fighting death with a horrible sickness or when he described having to walk 200 miles by foot on his own to leave his fathers plantation. Although these could both be chalked up to be nothing more than exaggerations, the fact that he still tried to use these points against Cory in order to prove himself to have gone through more hardships and therefore have been more wise still is kinda messed up. All of this could have been chalked up to him having a hard time remembering what had happened; however the fact that he was so adamant about his story being completely reliable made his whole character seem ever more scummy. The reality was that he wanted to prevent Cory from surpassing him in something that he used to be so passionate about. He took away Cory’s dreams in order to prevent being overshadowed and outdone by someone who he most likely saw as inferior. The truth about Troy is that he did everything that he could do to be a hindrance and a miserable figure to all of those around him whether it was trying to keep a favor over Lyons, keeping Cory from ever truly pursuing his dreams, or cheating and then beating on his wife that he had supposedly truly loved. At the end of the book when he dies it was clear that everyone that was involved in his life in one way or another clearly had a chip off of their shoulder. Like some heavy burden was lifted from their lives everything seemingly had begun to improve after his death. Cory becomes successful in his work as an officer and Rose is finally able to raise a daughter in a collected environment. In the end Troy wasn’t living his life for anyone else. He was a loathing narcissist who thought he had it worse than everyone else around him when in the end he didnt realise that the only person that made his life so difficult was himself.