Fences
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6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Fences trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
August Wilson's Fences is one of the most widely taught American plays, and one of the most argued over. At its centre is Troy Maxson, a former ballplayer turned sanitation worker whose pride, humour and bitterness shape everyone around him: his wife Rose, his sons Lyons and Cory, his brother Gabriel and his oldest friend, Bono. This quiz follows the play from its opening scene to the funeral that closes it. Expect questions on what happens in each scene, who wants what and why, the stories Troy tells about his past, and the meaning behind the fence itself. A final group covers the playwright, the original stage production, the later revival and the film. It is written for students checking their reading before a test, for teachers and book clubs who want ready-made discussion starters, and for anyone who has just watched the film. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print it for a class.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Fences, where did Troy Maxson learn to play baseball and first meet his friend Bono?
In prison
In prison, where Troy served fifteen years for killing a man during a robbery, he found both the game and his lifelong friend. He met Rose only after his release.
Q 02In Fences, what did Troy Maxson buy with the $3,000 his brother Gabriel received for a war wound?
The family home
The family home was bought with Gabriel's compensation, which is why Troy feels guilty now that his brother has moved out to rent a room elsewhere.
Q 03In Fences, a union complaint makes Troy the city's first Black sanitation worker promoted to what?
Truck driver
Truck driver is the job he wins, though Bono points out that Troy has never held a licence. Once behind the wheel he misses having anyone to talk to.
Q 04In Fences, how does Alberta, the woman Troy has been seeing behind Rose's back, lose her life?
In childbirth
In childbirth: the news comes by telephone just as Troy is setting out to visit, and he is left with a newborn daughter, Raynell, who has no mother.
Q 05Which actress won a Tony as Rose in the 2010 revival of Fences, then repeated the role on film?
Viola Davis
Viola Davis already had a Tony for another August Wilson play, King Hedley II, before she took on Rose.
Q 06Who directed the 2016 film of Fences and starred as Troy, the role he had played on Broadway?
Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington told his cast and crew to make no decision that the playwright's words did not lead them to. He later produced a film of another August Wilson play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.
Q 07In Fences, Cory returns for his father's funeral in the uniform of which branch of the military?
The Marines
The Marines took Cory in after Troy threw him off the property; he comes back a corporal and, at first, refuses to attend the service.
Q 08The title of Fences also echoes a baseball phrase about a batter trying to hit what?
A home run
A home run clears the outfield wall, so a hitter who swings for the fences is going for everything at once, much as Troy does in life.
Q 09A film of Fences stalled for decades because August Wilson insisted that the studio hire what?
A Black director
A Black director was his condition, because he believed the job needed someone who shared the culture of the characters. The film arrived eleven years after he died.
Q 10August Wilson set Fences, like most of his ten-play cycle, in which American city where he was born?
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh is never named in the script, though its landmarks are; the only play of the ten set elsewhere is Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, in Chicago.
Q 11Fences opens with Troy and Bono drinking and swapping stories on which night, their weekly payday?
Friday
Friday is payday at the sanitation department, and the ritual of a shared bottle and tall tales returns throughout the play.
Q 12In Fences, Troy's elder son Lyons turns down sanitation work, hoping to make his living as what?
A musician
A musician is all Lyons wants to be: he plays jazz in local clubs and tells his father it is the one thing that gives his life meaning.
Q 13In Fences, what does Lyons usually want when he drops by his father's house on Troy's payday?
To borrow money
To borrow money, ten dollars this time: Troy grumbles and lectures, then lets Rose hand it over. Lyons later shocks him by trying to pay it back.
Q 21Which pitching legend, named by Troy in Fences, finally reached the majors as a 42-year-old rookie?
Satchel Paige
Satchel Paige is the pitcher Troy boasts of hitting hard seven times, proof to him that the Negro leagues had the better arms.
Q 22Which slugger, who died months before baseball integrated, is a likely model for Troy in Fences?
Josh Gibson
Josh Gibson, regarded as the best hitter in Black baseball, died of a stroke at 35 without ever playing a game in the white major leagues.
Q 23In Fences, Troy Maxson orders his son Cory to win back his part-time job at which grocery chain?
A&P
A&P is also where Rose likes to shop because it is cheaper, while Troy stays loyal to Bella's, the neighbourhood store.
Q 14In Fences, which illness nearly killed Troy and inspired his tall tale of wrestling with Death?
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is Rose's plain version of events; in Troy's telling he grappled with Death for three days and won.
Q 15In Fences, Troy spins a tall tale about buying what on credit from a stranger he calls the devil?
Furniture
Furniture is the purchase, and Troy swears he has paid the devil ten dollars a month for fifteen years; Rose says he is lying.
Q 16In Fences, whose heavenly book does Gabriel say already has his brother Troy's name written in it?
Saint Peter
Saint Peter keeps the book at heaven's gates, and Gabriel, who believes he is an archangel, is waiting for the day he tells him to open them.
Q 17In Fences, what does Gabriel Maxson carry everywhere, ready to sound it when Judgment Day arrives?
A trumpet
A trumpet, old and missing its mouthpiece, goes wherever Gabriel goes; since his head wound he has believed the archangel's task is his own.
Q 18In Fences, Gabriel keeps breaking off conversations to chase away which creatures only he can hear?
Hellhounds
Hellhounds trouble Gabriel, who came back from the fighting with a metal plate in his head and the belief that he is an angel.
Q 19In Fences, Troy's brother Gabriel suffered his life-changing head wound in which conflict?
World War II
World War II left Gabriel with a metal plate in his skull, and Troy still rages that the government valued the injury at a few thousand dollars.
Q 20In Fences, when Cory asks for a television, Troy says they must first fix which part of the house?
The roof
The roof has gone ten years without fresh tar, Troy explains, yet he offers a deal: if Cory raises half the price of a set, he will match it.
Q 24In Fences, Troy Maxson ends his son's football season by going behind Cory's back to speak to whom?
The coach
The coach is told that Cory may no longer play, so the college recruiter never gets his meeting, and Cory slams his helmet down in fury.
Q 25In Fences, Troy answers each act of defiance by Cory with a warning drawn from which baseball rule?
Three strikes
Three strikes and the batter is out: Cory collects his first for giving up his job and his second for shoving his father to protect Rose.
Q 26In Fences, Troy Maxson's brutal father raised eleven children alone while scraping a living as what?
A sharecropper
A sharecropper more worried about his cotton than his children, he beat Troy unconscious at fourteen, and the boy left for good.
Q 27In Fences, the teenage Troy walks two hundred miles to which Southern port before riding north?
Mobile
Mobile was only a stop: Troy rode on with other men seeking freedom up north and found city life harder than the farm he had fled.
Q 28In Fences, what does Rose insist truly kept Troy out of baseball's major leagues?
His age
His age is Rose's answer: by the time the majors signed Black players, Troy was past his best, though he blames prejudice alone.
Q 29In Fences, Rose accuses Troy Maxson of signing papers that send his brother Gabriel to live where?
A mental hospital
A mental hospital takes Gabriel on Troy's signature, the signature he refused to put on Cory's football papers, and Rose says half his brother's cheque now comes to Troy.
Q 30In Fences, what does Rose decide to do about Raynell, the daughter Troy has fathered with Alberta?
Raise her as her own
Raise her as her own is Rose's choice, made for the innocent child's sake, but in the same breath she tells Troy he no longer has a wife in her.