August Wilson’s major concern is to communicate the African American cultural awareness; to establish a counter-culture based on self-confidence and assertiveness. He advocates an encouraging attitude to elevate the African Americans’ spiritual consciousness and to teach them how to sublimate their aims in life. He aspires to win the everlasting battle against racial discrimination, oppression, injustice, and identity confusion. Sublimation, as a defense mechanism, will be Wilson’s new ammunition to re-read and to re-interpret the psychic constitution of his people, to help them get out of their self-imposed fences and this is the core of Wilson’s new culture. Sublimation is the process in which the psyche directs the negative drives towards a goal, a process that generally aims at the ‘progress of the spirit’; at a better and truer self. Wilson is perfectly aware of the ground on which he should stand as an African American and as a playwright he is willing to help his people find their own ground. The psychic constitutions of Wilson’s main characters in Fences have been threatened by various social and psychological delinquencies, yet they are finally able to reconcile their inner self and be productive through following a new culture based on the concept of sublimation.
University of Baghdad
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