Butler 1

Max Butler

Dr. Watts

Comp 2

April 28, 2018

Old Blue

There are many different layers in August Wilson’s play Fences. There is the theme of

duty that Troy feels he owes his family. There’s the theme of betrayal when Troy cheats on

Rose and goes behind Cory’s back ruining his football career. However, there is one layer of the

play that often goes unnoticed by common readers, the song “Old Blue”. This song brings the

whole play together and signifies some major plot points in the play. The song “Old Blue” can

be analyzed into three major themes: holding on to the past, holding on to fond memories, and

letting go of past wrongs.

When Troy sings the song “Old Blue” in Act One of Fences, it’s common for some

readers to just read it and move on. But if readers analyze what this song means to Troy, they

can begin to grasp what the song really means to the play. One writer, named Joseph H.

Wessling, wrote an article about whether Fences was a comedy or a tragedy. One line reads,

“Troy, for all his strengths, is flawed humanity in need of grace and forgiveness” (Wessling).

Many people sing songs of grace in order to receive grace and forgiveness, but “Old Blue” is a

different kind of song. In a way, it almost seems like a comedic song, something to brighten the

mood of the play and to make people laugh. However, Fences seems to be a play of tragedy,
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not of comedy like Wessling was arguing. This becomes more apparent the further readers

analyze the song. At first it does seem like Troy is singing to lighten the mood in the house and

bring the attention of the whole room to him. He sings “Hear it ring! Hear it ring! I had a dog his

name was Blue. You know Blue was mighty true. You know Blue was a good old dog. Blue treed

a possum in a hollow log” (1.4). This sounds like a normal man singing an old song about a dog,

but it has so much more meaning then that. The next lines say his father was the one who came

up with the song, and that signifies that the song means a lot to Troy. It was one of the only

ways that Troy could remember his father in a good light. It was a great way for Troy to escape

his present pain and think about his past and relive his childhood. In an article by Patricia Gantt,

a writer for the Student’s Encyclopedia of Great American Writers, she talks about why Troy is

singing this song in the first place. She says, “Troy is telling himself that he is good and he isn’t a

disappointment or a disgrace to his family. It’s as if Troy is telling himself “You are a good

person” and giving himself a pep talk or confidence boost” (Gantt). This is an interesting

concept, and one that could very well be true. Troy is downright mean to Cory and Lyons and

he even cheats on his wife Rose. It could very well be Troy trying to tell himself that he isn’t a

piece of shit and that his family actually does like him. On another note, it can also be gathered

that Troy loved his dad’s dog Blue. To remember a whole song, just to remember his father,

seems a little farfetched. Maybe Blue was the only thing in Troy’s past that he generally misses

and that’s what he is trying to remember as well.

Troy really did love the song “Old Blue”, and one of the main reasons for that is because

he loved the dog Blue. For all the stories that Troy tells and how he changes little things about

them every time he tells them, “Old Blue” stays the same no matter how many times it is sung.
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This might mean that this is more then a ‘story’ that Troy is trying to tell, that it really does

mean something to him. In one of the most important scenes in the play, when Troy is talking

about when he ran away from home when he was fourteen, Blue was there. “When I woke up, I

was laying right there by the creek, and Blue……this old dog we had….was licking my face” (1.4).

This was right after Troy’s father had beat him up for interfering with his attempted rape of a

young girl. This was one of the most traumatic experiences Troy had ever gone through in his

life, and there Blue was comforting him. When Troy felt the world was falling down around him

and cried because he thought he was blind, there Blue was being the only one in his life that he

felt he could count on in that moment. If readers think about this, its easy to believe that Troy

hung on to the song “Old Blue”, but more importantly held on to Blue.

In the most important scene of the entire play, the whole song of “Old Blue” was finally

sung in entirety at the end of the play. Cory was still harboring a lot of pain and anger at his

dad, and he had his mind set that he wasn’t going to go to the funeral. That’s when Raynell

comes in and says, “Did you know Blue. Papa’s dog what he sing about all the time” (2.5). This

made Cory look back on his childhood and his father Troy. He remembered the good times

when his father was happy and sung the song “Old Blue”. This made Cory open some past

wounds that he was trying to seal up for good. It also made him think about his father in a

positive light, which was very different then how Cory normally viewed Troy. Upon

remembering the lyrics to the song, he began singing the song and was later joined in by

Raynell. “You know Blue was a good old dog” (2.5). At this point Cory is perhaps thinking of his

father Troy as Blue and that he was a “good old dog.” This signifies the start of Cory forgiving

and moving past what his father had done to him. By singing, Cory was connecting with his
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father and realizing that not everything that Troy did was bad, that he tried to do good. Even

though it appeared that Troy hated Cory in some parts of the play, Cory realized that Troy did

care about him, he just didn’t know how to show it in a “manly” way. In an article published by

Jackson R. Bryer, the song “Old Blue” comes up, and with it some interesting points. One line

reads “Leaving behind the story of Troy and the completion of his life, Ol’ Blue that Wilson

slightly rewrote isn’t a song about an old hunting dog but in fact about an old misunderstood

father” (Bryer). This furthers the point that Blue is really referring to Troy. This helps develop

the song as something more than just merely a song. The next really important lyric is, “Old

Blue died and I dug his grave” (2.5). Because Cory is thinking of his father as Blue, it then

resonates with Cory that his father is the dog that has died and that he would in a way have to

dig his own father’s grave. This makes the song take on a whole new meaning, one that talks

about death. Another line reads “Blue laid down and died like a man. Now he’s treeing possums

in the Promised Land” (2.5). This makes Cory think about his father in a good light, and that his

father died like a man. It also signifies that in Cory and Raynell’s minds Troy is going to heaven

and that he will be the same person they simultaneously loved and hated. At the end of this

song, Cory finally realized that his father was trying to do right by him, and he forgave his father

in that moment and moved on. Cory decided to go to the funeral and move past all the pain

that Troy had caused him, because in a way he knew that his father meant well and that he

would live on in the song “Old Blue”.

If readers examine the song “Old Blue”, they can see how important of a role it played in

the play as a whole. It was a way for Troy to remember his past and his father without viewing

his father in a negative way. The song also let Troy hang on to Blue, the one thing from his past,
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along with Gabe, that Troy wanted to hold on to and remember. And in the final lines of the

play, it signified Cory forgiving his father and becoming the man that Troy always wanted him to

be. In this way, the song “Old Blue” brought the whole play together and was present in some

pretty major plot points. All readers should understand and appreciate the value that is in the

song “Old Blue”.

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Works Cited

Bryer, Jackson R., and Mary C. Hartig. “Fences.” Encyclopedia of American Drama, Third Edition,

Facts On File, 2012. Bloom's Literature,

online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=100842&itemid=WE54&articleId=6842.

Gantt, Patricia. “Fences.” Student's Encyclopedia of Great American Writers, Volume 5, Facts On

File, 2010. Bloom's Literature,

online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=100842&itemid=WE54&articleId=479546.

Wessling, Joseph H. "Wilson's Fences." Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Jeffrey W.

Hunter, vol. 222, Gale, 2006. Literature Resource Center, http://0-

link.galegroup.com.archway.searchmobius.org/apps/doc/H1100072303/LitRC?u=moren

etecentral&sid=LitRC&xid=1eaf5243. Accessed 26 Apr. 2018. Originally published in

Explicator, vol. 57, no. 2, Winter 1999, pp. 123-127.

Wilson, August. “Fences.” Backpack Literature. Longman, 2016. Print