Monologues for Women

Fences

Fences
by August Wilson (1985)

Character: ROSE— She is a forty-three-year-old woman, devoted to her husband Troy and their son, Cory.
Situation: Written by an African-American play right, this play is set in 1957. It is the story of the Maxsons, who live in an ancient two-story brick house set off a small alley in a big neighborhood. Just before this monologue, Rose told her husband that she knows about his affair with another woman.

ROSE— I been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don't you think I've ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got wants and needs. but I held onto you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams... and I buried them inside you. I planted the seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't ever gonna bloom.
but I held onto you, Troy. I hold you tighter. You was my husband. I owed you everything I had. Every part of me I could find to give you. And upstairs in that room... with the darkness falling in on me... I gave everything I had to try and erase the doubt that you wasn't the finest man in the world. And wherever you was going... I wanted to be there with you. Cause you was my husband. Cause that's the only way I was going to survive as your wife. You always talking about what you give... and what you don't have to give. But you take two. You take... and don't even know nobody's giving!