Politics in Paratextual and Textual Elements in Fences
Résumé
The plays of August Wilson offer a complex vision of what it means to be an African American in America; Thierry Dubost pays attention to the paratext of Fences in order to reveal the play's political implications. Dubost admits that "one might even hesitate to classify Fences as a political play" (201), but, in "Politics in Paratextual and Textual Ele- ments in Fences" he argues that it is precisely the near invisibility of a political agenda and the use of a realism that goes counter to the overtly political Brechtian "A-effect" that give the play its political resonance. Wilson, far from attempting to surprise the audience into action as LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka demands of the theater, seeks acknowledge- ment of the existence and respectability of the African American as a part of the American identity and culture.