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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 5 page report discusses Ernest Gaines’ A Gathering of Old Men, originally published in 1983, and allows the reader to hear from a number of perspectives and voices about what the experience of being African American in the South has meant to individual old (black) men. The story is about 15 old men of secluded parish of Louisiana in the 1970s. They come together as the result of the brutal killing of Beau Bouton. Each goes to the sheriff, 12-gauge shotgun in hand, and confesses to the murder and the reader learns of each of their very private, although connected, stories as they claim responsibility for Bouton’s death. Bibliography lists only the primary source.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_BWoldmen.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
experience of being African American in the South has meant to individual old (black) men. Instead of presenting the pastoral beauty and drama of the South, as so many Southern
writers have, Gaines juxtaposes "that other thing" -- meaning slavery, bigotry, civil rights protests, and individual resistance -- are as much a part of the South as its balmy climate,
humidity, and slower speed of life. The novel is all dialogue and as the reader "hears" the voices of each of the old men, it becomes clear that at the
core of their stories is the history of slavery and racism and the ways in which the grandchildren of slaves had to protect themselves and their families any way they
could even though they were legally "free" from white subjugation. They have never before done anything as bold or as rebellious as gather together and individually claim that they were
each responsible for a mans murder knowing full well who was. In other words, it is a story of powerless men making a stand and asserting that they are not
powerless. In addition, their stories about their family members buried in the cemetery where they gather and their memories of those loved ones, most notably Tuckers story about his brother
Silas, also tell the stories of the history of racism in the South. Nonetheless, the reader also realizes that the men also deal with their own somewhat ambivalent feelings regarding
what was good in the past and how it contrasted with the bad. The "Gathering" The old men of the story are residents of a relatively secluded parish of Louisiana
in the 1970s. They come together as the result of the brutal killing of Beau Bouton, a Cajun farmer, overseer, and racist bully. Candy Marshall, the young and headstrong
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