Question

Paraphrase Read this selection from Fences carefully. Note that this is only a single exchange in a long play. Close reading is intended to account for a small selection of literary text, but, as we will see, focusing on just a few lines can help you to make sense of the play as a whole. Cory: How much time you doing? Lyons: They give me three years. I got that beat now. I ain’t got but nine more months. It ain’t so bad. You learn to deal with it like anything else. You got to take the crookeds with the straights. That’s what Papa used to say. He used to say that when he struck out. I seen him strike out three times in a row … and the next time up he hit the ball over the grandstand. Right out there in Homestead Field. He wasn’t satisfied hitting in the seats … he wanted to hit it over everything! After the game he had two hundred people standing around waiting to shake his hand. You got to take the crookeds with the straights. Yeah, Papa was something else. Cory: You still playing? Lyons: Cory … you know I’m gonna do that. There’s some fellows down there we got us a band … we gonna try and stay together when we get out … but yeah, I’m still playing. It still helps me to get out of bed in the morning. As long as it do that I’m gonna be right there playing and trying to make some sense out of it. (Act II, Scene 5) Question 1 of 1 In your own words, give a brief summary of the factual content of this passage—that is, what the text directly states—as it proceeds from beginning to end. What situation is being described here and by whom? What happens in that situation? Respond to this prompt in no more than three complete sentences. Please note that we haven’t reached Fences’s so-called “deeper meaning” yet; for now, please stick to “just the facts.” Beginning with a literal description of what happens in the passage will force you to confront your own confusion—“What the heck is going on here?!”—and slow down the interpretive process.

Paraphrase
Read this selection from Fences carefully. Note that this is only a single exchange in a long play. Close reading is intended to account for a small selection of literary text, but, as we will see, focusing on just a few lines can help you to make sense of the play as a whole.

Cory: How much time you doing?

Lyons: They give me three years. I got that beat now. I ain’t got but nine more months. It ain’t so bad. You learn to deal with it like anything else. You got to take the crookeds with the straights. That’s what Papa used to say. He used to say that when he struck out. I seen him strike out three times in a row … and the next time up he hit the ball over the grandstand. Right out there in Homestead Field. He wasn’t satisfied hitting in the seats … he wanted to hit it over everything! After the game he had two hundred people standing around waiting to shake his hand. You got to take the crookeds with the straights. Yeah, Papa was something else.

Cory: You still playing?

Lyons: Cory … you know I’m gonna do that. There’s some fellows down there we got us a band … we gonna try and stay together when we get out … but yeah, I’m still playing. It still helps me to get out of bed in the morning. As long as it do that I’m gonna be right there playing and trying to make some sense out of it.

(Act II, Scene 5)

Question 1 of 1
In your own words, give a brief summary of the factual content of this passage—that is, what the text directly states—as it proceeds from beginning to end. What situation is being described here and by whom? What happens in that situation? Respond to this prompt in no more than three complete sentences.

Please note that we haven’t reached Fences’s so-called “deeper meaning” yet; for now, please stick to “just the facts.” Beginning with a literal description of what happens in the passage will force you to confront your own confusion—“What the heck is going on here?!”—and slow down the interpretive process.

Added by Jonathan S.

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