His father left his mother when Gaines was a small boy, forcing his mother to move to New Orleans to find work. Fifty cents left guess I get a little piece of salt meat with that. Though it is clear that money is scarce, it is just as clear that this family knows how to survive with dignitythat is, without charity. -1 Likes, 13 Comments - Stephanie Wise (@girlversusdough) on Instagram: "It's literally pouring rain today on top of the 3+ feet of snow we had piled up and the sky is gray" Subsequent publications included the short stories A Long Day in November (1959), Just Like a Tree (1962), and The Sky is Gray (1963), and the novels Catherine Carmier (1964), Of Love and Dust (1967), Bloodline (1968), The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), In My Fathers House (1978) A Gathering of Old Men (1983), and A Lesson Before Dying (1993). 110-13. Understanding The Sky is Gray requires that one not only understand something about the Louisiana of the 1930s and 1940s but also understand what was happening with regard to race in the United States during the 1960s, because the events of what later came to be called the Civil Rights era made a substantial and lasting impression on Gaines, one that can be seen not too far beneath the surface of The Sky is Gray in the person of the student and in the storys preoccupation with racial inequality. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 2 nd Edition. But she is important for another reason besides her human decency: it is paradoxically her kind gesture that represents the greatest potential threat to Jamess manhood, at least in his mothers eyes. The Sky is Gray by Ernest J Gaines; Learning in Focus, inc. You have remained in right site to start getting this info. It growls so loud you can hear it a mile. Moreover, it soon becomes clear that the black mother and son must accept the fact that they have now become the observed, not the observersthat they are the ones who dearly need to be seen for what they are, cold and hungry. Plot Summary That though there are grave issues of race and class and poverty that Gaines used an "innocent"black child and an old white woman to bring hope and lovea very touching, emotional and humbling story. The gray of the sky which hangs threateningly over the action of the story symbolizes the dangers inherent in the extremes which James must reconcile. In short, what is. kayeeaugust17. The purpose of the heart is to pump blood throughout the body, and nothing else.. The minister accepts God unquestioningly, while the student rejects God because belief in Him alleviates the need to question: Show me one reason to believe in the existence of a God, the boy says. Bloodline: A Black Mans South, in CLA Journal, Vol. An elderly white woman and store-owner declares, I saw yall each time you went by. The blacks, now realizing they are not going to conquer the keen-eyed compassion of this woman and her husband, bow and accept food and a perhaps-too-generous supply of salt meat under the transparent pretense of Jamess doing some chores for the shopkeepers. Because James is suffering a toothache, symbolic of the festering wounds of racism, he and his mother take the bus into Bayonne to see a dentist. Told in a series of thirteen more or less chronological episodes, Jamess narrative is punctuated by frequent flashbacks to past events, each of which provide the reader with a more complete picture of the moral forces pulling at and shaping James. In their introduction to Porch Talk with Ernest Gaines: Conversations on the Writers Craft they write: Gainess characters evoke laughter, joy, despair, grief, anger, sympathy, andperhaps most of allpride. ." James, the narrator in Ernest Gaines' "The Sky is Gray" is an eight-year-old African American male who is still a child but being the oldest male in the household he faces more responsibility than a normal young boy would. On the other hand, the student maintains a defensible position, but his egotistical stance exposes his feelings of alienation from his community. The force implicit in the story is Octavias individualism, which threatens to deprive James of membership in the human community. Whereas the minister clings to the traditional religious value of faith, the student espouses the development of more individualistic values based on reasoning and logic. Monsieur Bayonne at the storys beginning is the superstitious complement to the preacher in the middle section. Only now, in the narrative present, as an almost eight year-old boy, can James understand why she forced him to do this. This is puzzling, because a childs perspective is considerably narrower than an adults. It is not possible, within the scope of this essay, to survey all of Gainess works, or to make more than a cursory pass through The Sky is Gray. It is also not possible, in a discussion of what Im calling moral readings, to avoid some necessary oversimplifications of the complex issues surrounding and clouding the idea of race. "The Sky is Gray" should be a required literary experience for both adults and students who share Louisiana's educational complexity. This is neither a subjective nor an unimportant question. . Gates, Henry L, and Nellie Y. McKay. Some of the reasons for what Lowe considers the unfair obscur[ity of] Gaines gifts are that Gaines writes about a largely rural community, isolated by both its southernness and its special Louisiana qualities, which it is true make it exotic, but at the same time somewhat inaccessible, even for many African Americans. Another reason Lowe cites for Gaines neglect is his refusal to cater to stereotypes. He states that although people expect stories set in Louisiana to take place in New Orleans, Gaines has never set one there. missing from the current crop of responses to Gaines is a moral reading, one that doesnt look for causes and effects in a two-dimensional equation of character and color, but rather, in the quality of the characters thoughts and actions, regarding the characters not as caricatures of different types, but as fully formed people with their ownto borrow a phrase from Joyceindividuating rhythms. If Gaines is indeed an imaginative writer of canonical status, his works will reward such readings. Words, he says, mean nothing. I was born too late to believe in your God. What the student desires is a new age for American blacksone which can blend faith with sight, the ear with the eye, ones internal blackness with the surrounding whiteness into The Sky Is Gray. James is acute enough to sense a kindred dilemma and thinks to himself: When I grow up I want to be just like him.. Moreover, while an adult may be judged on the basis of his or her thoughts and actions, a child is still too completely a product of his or her parents to evaluate as an independent being. Through the stories of the many fascinating people who touch Jane's life, Gaines presents not only a moving perspective on the struggles of African Americans but also a social history of the United States since the Civil War. On one hand, Alnest is little more than an offstage voice, the voice of an old man cautioning Helena, his wife, against the cold. two young boys, the resolution of the conflict resides with their parents. Mama tries to teach James that he is the man of the family now. table<br>We make dumplings from a thin but durable dough so that it . Gaines writings about Louisiana have been understood and responded to largely as writings about race. ." The sky is gray, the clouds are low and the dark waves are hiding their power under a more neutral appearance. Although the point is never explicitly stated, it is apparent that Octavia finds the values of her community inadequate to make James the kind of man that she feels he must become. But the question remains whether or not in this blending of black and white into The Sky Is Gray there still may be too great a personal pain and sense of loss or self-betrayal for black youth or artist ever to transcend Gunnar Myrdals penetrating observation: The colored peoples are excluded from assimilation.. With all of these facets, why would Gaines end the story with this quest unfinished? . He is the oldest of all the children. For Further Study . Consequently, in attempting to communicate with the community, he feels frustration, which reinforces his belief in his own isolation. Though still a child, James is on the verge of youth. Critical Overview The story occurs on a cold winter day in Louisiana, whose gray sky suggests the lack of hope for many African Americans. The sky is gray. From henceforth, Jamess own long day will be comprised of this struggle between black blood and white blood within a cerebral sky of graya terrifying and chilling confrontation with ones own senses and sensibilities. This comment incites a young mana teacher, James thinks, or a studentto join in. All in all, the only pride that can be salvaged at the conclusion of the story is the black mothers verbal assuranceYou not a bumand the visual accommodation whereby James turns down the collar of his coat in order to appear as an Afro-American or newly reconstituted hyperaural/ hypervisual man. This is what the black student in the dentists office had desiredthe best of both cultures, of ear and eye. With James' toothache at the central point of the plot, the story takes us through the obstacles this black family faces in terms of safety . My students, of multi-ethnicities, enjoyed following along in . Me, I dont listen to my heart. They are struggling for survival after James' father is taken in the army. For example, the road in this story is very gray: "It's a long old road, and far's you can see you don't see nothing but gravel," as James put it. Lowe, John., editor. The absence of the fatherin the armyhas somewhat prematurely forced James into the role of the man of the house; and we first find this young black initiate looking down the road, of American hypervisuality. Houston Community College English 1301 Professor Hinchen-Bryan "The Sky is Gray" Discussion Questions Directions: Type your answer to the following questions on this sheet in a different color and submit it canvas by Saturday, October 30, 2021 by 11:59 p.m. 1. Based on Gaines own experience, the character of Monsieur Bayonne is a mildly unsympathetic but still dangerous figurethough he acts without malice, his actions keep James from a dentist for several days. Here, hiding her true feelings and motives, she makes use of the technique of masking and teaches her son a valuable lesson in pride and survival. Sources Although her relationship with this absent husband is only briefly mentioned, one senses in her attitude and behavior that his departure left her vulnerable. Furthermore, the story implies that the community can continue to provide the individual with emotional support in his efforts to fulfill his individual needs. $18.75 + $3.99 shipping. In her efforts to make James a man, Octavia apparently believes that she has only her own behavior and attitude toward life to offer as a model. Sora Ga Haiiro Dakara summary: A collection of short stories. Historical Context Octavia shows the characteristics of a good parent by being stern, loving, and independent. The Sky is Gray. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. While precisely dating the start of an era is difficult, most agree that the beginning of the Civil Rights era can be dated to John F. Kennedys election in 1961 as this countrys 35th and youngest President, and with the United Nations decision that same year to condemn the South African apartheid. Jamess mother Octavia is a strong, proud, uncompromising woman largely based on Gainess own mother. Gaudet, Marcia G. Porch Talk with Ernest Gaines: a Conversation on the Writers Craft, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1990. As they ride in the back of the bus reserved for blacks and walk the streets of . The sky is gray., The interaction between the community and the individual, along with its role in the shaping of human personality, is a primary concern of Ernest J. Gaines in much of his fiction. The Sky is Gray is episodic in formthat is, the story is not told as a sequence of events, but as a sequence of events punctuated by narrative flashbacks and broken up into numbered segments. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Like James and Jamess mother, the source for Jamess aunt is drawn from Gainess own experience, modeled after his own great aunt, Augustine Jefferson. Ernest James Gaines (January 15, 1933 - November 5, 2019) was an American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. 414-25. My heart tells me. Sure, My heart tells me. And as long as you listen to what your heart tells you, you will have only what the white man gives you and nothing more. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. In these stories, black folk culture, with its emphasis on community-defined values and behaviors, shows signs of deterioration, while Western individualism and the development of more personally-defined values appear as catalysts in the demise of the black . What exemplifies the American national narrative in the story "The Sky is Gray" by Ernest J. Gaines? Never one to waste words, she knows how to protect herself: When a pimp tries to molest her, she throws him against a wall and threatens to stab him with the knife she carries. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Added . . The reader only sees a small part of this process, a few hours one . The importance of this distinction is difficult to overstate: it is nothing less than the difference between a story about people living in perpetual victimhood, on one hand, or a story about a mother trying to teach her son what it will take to become the sort of man she will respect, on the other. Human existence does not lend itself to such neat categorizing. 1. Octavias skepticism and self-imposed isolation place her in a similarly antagonistic stance toward the community. The scene in which Jamess mother is toldor discoversthat her son must go to the dentist is skipped over, but the familys poverty, and the comparatively huge cost of having the tooth pulled, is not. From Ernest J. Gaines, author of "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," comes a deceptively simple, yet emotionally complex tale of a young boy's discovery of what it's like to be black in Louisiana during the 1940's. In 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated in New York and outbreaks of anti-black violence occurred in Selma, Alabama, including Ku Klux Klan shootings and Martin Luther King leading a procession of 4,000 in a protest march from Selma to Montgomery. Random Word. Here, the key episode occurs between the liberal black student and the conservative black preachera paradoxical conflict between Word and word, between faith and sight. Short Stories for Students. (February 23, 2023). He could have told it through the eyes of Jamess mother Octavia, or Val; he could have told it in epistolary form (as a letter) from Jamess mother to his father; or from an omniscient perspective, one that allowed him to describe the sensory and sentient world from all of these vantage points in turn. He is an eight-year-old African American, living in the south during the 1940's before the civil rights movement came into effect. I know I dont.). Jamess thoughts then turn to the memory of two redbirds he and his brother, Ty, had trapped, and to his mothers inexplicable insistence that he kill them and her equally inexplicable fury when he couldnt. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. Critics have been kind to Gaines, but his reputation has not risen with such meteoric speed as have the reputations of some of the other contemporary black writers of his generation. All the leaves are brown (all the leaves are brown) And the sky is gray (and the sky is gray) I've been for a walk (I've been for a walk) On a winter's day (on a winter's day) I'd be safe and warm (I'd be safe and warm) If I was in L.A. (if I was in L.A.) California dreamin' (California dreamin') His first bona-fide publicationsThe Boy in the Double-Breasted Suit and The Turtleswere published in San Francisco State Colleges Transfer magazine in 1956. The reader only sees a small part of this process, a few hours one morning, a few more that afternoon, but these hours are important: they form some of the bedrock upon which the foundation of Jamess manhoodhis sense of personal dignity and worth, as well as courage and silence in difficultywill be built. But if one takes a step back from the more obvious reading another, more subtle, reading begins to emerge. The story begins with James and his mother waiting, on a painfully cold morning, for the arrival of a bus which will take them to nearby Bayonne. Helena tries to give them a larger piece, but Jamess mother insists on an accurate measure. Her dissembling enables her to warm him without compromising her dignity by begging the proprietor to allow her son use of the stove. Two of the stories in Bloodline, A Long Day in November and The Sky Is Gray, are particularly illustrative of the conflict between community perspective and individual needs. Add to Cart . The student wants very much to deny his auralityMe, I dont listen to my heartand he ends up sad and depressed over his liberalism and scepticism: I hope they arent all like me. All the leaves are brown & the sky is gray I've been for a walk On a winter's day I'd be safe & warm If I was in LA California dreamin' On such a winter's day Stopped into a church I passed along the way, Well, I got down on my knees, and I began to pray His narrative begins as he and his mother wait for a bus to take them to a dentists office where James is to have his tooth pulled and ends that same day, sometime shortly before (the reader presumes) that tooth is finally pulled. But if one decides to read the story as a more complex critique, not of racial relations, but of the valueand the costof dignity, one sees that even as an eight-year-old James understands her, Octavia is an interesting, fully-realized character. Indeed, the tooth with the aching root here is Jamess own Afro-American tongue and earthe dilemma of finding that his deepest roots are at odds with hypervisual America. Babb cant decide. Gaines is best-known for his novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, published in 1971 and adapted into a television movie starring Cicely Tyson in 1974. Next, James discovers that the dentists colored waiting-room is a place of intensified vocality and aurality, where patients are hollering like pigs under a gate and where all round the room people are talking. have chosen to tell the story from a number of different perspectives. Supporting these ideas is Gainess keen awareness of the all-pervasive and profoundly formative influence of race on virtually every aspect of life in the rural South of this era. Du Boiss famous observation, in the Forethought of The Souls of Black Folk, that the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line, for it is this color line in all of its manifestations that his work so carefully documents. The only way that James can truly understand his world is by authoritarian explanationthe tongue and ear forming the eye: Auntie and Monsieur Bayonne talked to me and made me see (italics mine). The sky is gray Its like this everyday The town is full of predators Dont turn into the prey I Flip a million out of nothing Make them feel a certain way Hoping that this swisher Puts me in a purple haze I got my eyes on the money The only reason I'm gonna keep goin' And I am back in the zone and its funny Chronic bag the cologne Another half . Further Reading Themes Examples of this are shown in the episode of the dentist offices with the poor treatment received to the patients, also in the kindness given to James and his mother by the old couple. The Individual and the Community in Two Short Stories by Ernest J. Gaines, in Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 14, April 5, 1971, pp. If that is the reading one chooses, the more important, more striking, more interesting story disappears, while James and his mother become nothing more than sympathetic but uninteresting racial stereotypes about the lives of poor blacks long ago. The title of the story "The Sky is Gray" by Ernest Gaines is ironic. His father, were told, is dead, and his mother is in a charity ward with a serious illness. Ralph was strict about the kinds of children he would allow Gaines to befriend; because of his stepfathers insistence that most of the local children were trouble, Gaines turned to the local public library for entertainment and solacean institution that had been closed to him in Louisiana because he was black. Although Octavia does not operate from the same level of awareness that the student does, it is strongly implied that her attitude stems from perceptions and conscious choices made as a result of her husbands army duty. Yet James, for all his acuteness of perception, can never follow Emerson into the parody of the Biblical command, Pray without ceasing: the New-England sage demands, Observe without ceasing (italics mine). It made me tear up mutiple times and shook me out of the comfort of privileges. However, the trip to the dentist is weighty too because of the prejudice that exists outside his little community. Word Count: 1084. By recording and preserving his peoples culture in his literature, Gaines creates both an ongoing memorial to a vanishing way of life and an enduring testament to human concerns., Marcia Gaudet and Carl Wooton share many of Babbs observations, particularly with regard to the importance of dignity under strain and courage. Author Biography The great fear here is not the capriciousness of white townfolk, but of being beholden, as a result of their poverty, to anyone. With nowhere to go, and no money to buy anything, James and his mother have no choice but to walk, aimlessly, until the doctors office opens again. Publisher Chicago : Perspective Films Language English. It is a testimony to Gaines's skill as a writer and storyteller that many people believe Jane Pittman was a real person. For Eddie in A Long Day in November, the ability to solve the enigma created by Amys decision to leave him is compounded by his already established communal world view. This is particularly useful in a story limited by the narrative point of view to the description of a young persons inner life. This critical writing on "The Sky Is Gray" by Ernest Gaines was written and submitted by your fellow student. 964 Likes, 78 Comments - Juha (@rough_curiosity) on Instagram: " when the sky is gray cold wind blow and raindrops play you bring sunshine in my day" Eventually they are stopped by an old white lady named Helena who has watched them each time they passed by. But the conflict goes much deeper than that. One might therefore argue that the real story is yet to be told, that it cannot be told until we see the boy as a man. The problem in the story arises not so much from her efforts to make James a man as from her approach to and definition of manhood. But what the narrative loses from one hand it gains in the other. She uses her new awareness to structure her world into clear-cut oppositional units. The first strong character trait James possesses is that he . He states that Gaines was shockingly underrated at the beginning of his career. As they ride in the back of the bus reserved for blacks and walk the streets of Bayonne, James, the first-person narrator, acutely evokes his almost unbearable feelings of pain, cold, and hunger: Only his love and respect for his mother prevent him from complaining. However, his indirect discovery that the community is no longer capable of defining his individual responsibility to his family is potentially important both for him and for Sonny. Gainess story is meant as more than an entertainment; it is meant as a critique of the racial injustice he experienced as a boy made vivid again by a visit to Louisiana in 1968. This tooth of endless remorse/aurality may be deniedIt aint hurting me no morebut will never be extracted from the central black consciousness of The Sky Is Gray. Of course, too, there is a shrewd and even humorous irony involved in attempting to exorcise the black hyperverbality by prayerwhether this be Baptist or Catholic incantationfor the Word/word, spoken or sung, lies at the root of black religiosity. Awesome bookit wraps within the narrative so many layers of the black's struggle in America, their historymakes the reader think and feel for the characters, as such engaged with their livesgave me goosebumps!! The narrator is James, an eight-year-old black boy living in rural Louisiana. His father is deployed to fight in World War II, so his mother; Octavia is forced to take . Young James (8 years old) mind is weighted down with guilt knowing his tooth has a big effect on the familythey might not be able to feed the family because of his tooth. She offers them food, but though James is hungry, his mother will not accept any charity, so Helena has James move some empty trash cans to the street as a face-saving gesture for his mother. By forcing James to sublimate his emotions and accept them as signs of human weakness, she fails to provide him with a means of dealing with the emotional responses of others in a way consistent with her philosophy. Summary. If one reverts to the easiest sort of race-based reading, one will invariably decide to read the story as one about victimhood. The trip to town on the bus marked White and Colored represents the real rite de passage for the black youth in white Americathe blurring of his sensibilities into gray: The river is gray. With the exception of Auntie and Mr. Bayonne, who attempt to explain his mothers cold, dispassionate treatment of him on one occasion, James is alienated in his effort to come to grips with both the social and personal forces governing his life. I wouldn't turn down bright colors either. Jamess absent father is serving the country, which expects its African-American citizens to fight for freedom abroad while it denies them those same freedoms at home. In both cases, the situation is presented as a puzzle to the young who must attempt to resolve the conflicts that come about as a result of this realization. . Though he would no doubt take issue with the South being described as a singular place and would certainly argue that it is many places, each different, each having unique gifts of nature and people, each facing unique challenges, he would just as surely agree with W. E. B. New York: Longman, 1997, 511530. JAMES, WILLIAM The bus arrives and, while his mother pays, James moves to the back of the bus, where the blacks are made to sit. Try refreshing this page.If the problem persists, contact our support contact our support More examples. While the action of the stories revolves around, The gray of the sky which hangs threateningly over the action of the story symbolizes the dangers inherent in the extremes which James must reconcile.. XIX, No. All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. Burke, William. 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