A Gathering of Old Men

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A Gathering of Old Men

• Ernest J. Gaines

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Ernest J. Gaines

• Born 1933 on a plantation in Louisiana.
• Moved to California with his mother and
  stepfather in 1948.
• Went into army and attended several colleges.

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Ernest J. Gaines Cont.

• His work has been widely acclaimed for the
  accuracy with which he captures the language of
  rural African Americans in the South.

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Ernest J. Gaines Cont.

• Novel A Lesson Before Dying was nominated for a
  Pulitzer Prize
• Surprise! Was also an Oprah Book Club selection.

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Summary of A Gathering of Old Men

• A novel about race relations in the American
  South, the action takes place over the course of
  one day in rural Louisiana. A white man has been
  shot dead and lies in the yard of a Black mans
  house. Eighteen old, Black men gather at the
  house and each claims that he is responsible for
  the killing.

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Summary Cont.

• The white sheriff conducts an investigation as
  the old men await the revenge of the dead mans
  relatives. By the end of the day, there are many
  surprises and many characters have changed in
  ways that they could not have predicted when they
  work up that morning.

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Structure/Point of View

• 20 short chapters
• 15 different narrators (10 Black characters, 5
  white characters)
• Uses Black dialect and standard English
• Uses direct and indirect characterization
• Primarily first person narration

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Historical Context

• Lynching
• 2,805 documented lynchings between 1882 and 1930
  in 10 southern states.
• 90 of the victims were African Americans.
• Averages to about 1 per week during the years
  mentioned.
• Many victims were tortured and mutilated before
  their deaths and parts of their bodies were sold
  as souvenirs.

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Lynching Cont.

• The 4 states with the worst records were
• Mississippi (463)
• Georgia (423)
• Louisiana (283)
• Alabama (262)
• In Pointed Coupee parish, where Gaines grew up,
  there were 6 lynchings between 1881-1908. The
  last recorded lynching in the U.S. was in 1968.

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Lynching Cont.

• Reasons
• Murder, robbery and rape
• Acting suspiciously
• Gambling, quarreling, adultery
• Acting improperly with a white woman
• Arguing with a white man
• Being obnoxious
• Insulting a white man or woman
• Demanding respect
• Trying to vote
• Voting for the wrong party

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Decline of lynching/mob violence

• Declined after World War II (1945)
• Ku Klux Klan membership declined
• By 1950, Klan consisted mostly of poorly educated
  white people

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Civil Rights 1950-1960

• New era of race relations in the South
• Secured voting and other rights
• Made discrimination illegal
• However, in rural South, change was VERY slow.
• And, African Americans did not always have full
  protection of the law.

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Today

• Racial Justice Alabama and Mississippi are now
  the two states with the highest number of African
  Americans elected to government office.

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Today Cont.

• Capital Punishment experts regard death penalty
  as unfair because it affects black people
  disproportionately.
• Those executed for interracial murder, only 11
  were white people who killed Black people
• 167 were Black people who killed white people.

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Today Cont.

• Lynching/racial violence
• Although rare, incidents of racial violence still
  take place.
• In 1998, James Byrd, a black man in Jasper, TX,
  dies after being chained to a truck and dragged
  behind it by three white men.

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Themes Racism

• Racism
• Novel takes place in late 1970s.
• Many still suffered from discrimination and abuse
  for several generations.
• White people use nigger.
• The law looks the other way or accepts white
  version of events.

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Theme Attaining Manhood

• When the old Black men decide to stand up for
  themselves after a lifetime in which they have
  endured humiliation and abuse, they finally
  become men in their own eyes, earning their own
  dignity.

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Theme Interdependence

• Races cannot succeed working independent of each
  other.

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Theme Race inside of Race

• The white people separate themselves from the
  Cajun white people.
• The Black people separate themselves based on the
  darkness of their skin.

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Theme Change

• Change habits of a lifetime
• Almost all characters go through some form of
  change

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Symbols

• Tractor
• Sugar Cane
• Guns
• Graveyard

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Main Characters

• Candy Marshall Protagonist, tries to protect
  the accused (Mathu)
• Beau Bauton Dead, important due to his symbolic
  role represents social order that has subjugated
  Black people throughout history linked to the
  violence of the past.

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Main Characters Cont.

• Sheriff Mapes 60 yrs old, white, seems to be a
  classic racist, but is more complex capable of
  understanding and change.
• Mathu lives on property, accused of crime, most
  believe he killed Beau.