A Gathering Of Old Men

Ernest J. Gaines novel, A Gathering of Old hands employs experi handstal narrative techniques in order to canvas lemonerstones of racial discrimination and classicism, as well as to psychoanalyze the nature of storytelling in hu pieceitys past and too for humanitys future.By employing no less than fifteen break-dance narrators in this novel, Gaines is suitable to penetrate deeply into the subjective experiences of a a number of men together whom comprise a social microcosm of African American history and experience.Through the respective(a) persona of voices at his disposal, Gaines probes a wide point of grievances and also exaltations among his characters and demonstrates the strength of communal unity. The diverse range of narrators used in the novel expresses the novels theme of strength-through- innovation adn unity-through-intimacy.A certain reading of the novel reveals the deep motivations of its characters, each(prenominal)(prenominal) of which reveals the nov els theme of redemption and social renewal. Because of the tribal nature of the diversity of narrators, the reader is able to feel as though they atomic number 18 a direct participant in the action, as though reading the novel is an generalisation rite of sorts.The novels central intrigue the murder of yawl Baton, also forwards the initiation or ritualistic them the novel is meant to show the growth (or initiation) not each of chronologically grown men into long slow down manhood, but to redefine standards of blue masculinity completely for the characters in the novel itself and also for the novels readers.In the novel, the fifteen separate narrators are drawn out of their ordinary lives and into a civic, almost mythic character. Gaines signals that the unfolding of events is meant to have this mythic, ritualistic overtone when the old men gathering extol that things seem new again, that they feel good nearly what they are doing.Wallace sees the water of the river as if it were s bowl a mystery, while Mat admits that he is happy that they and all the rest are doing something different, for the first time ( Gathering, 40).There is also the symbolic/ritualistic firing of guns, urged by Clatoo who tells the men Let them down in that location hear you ( Gathering, 48) and contrasted with the savagery of combined experience among the novels protagonists, this symbolic gunfire demonstrates controlled frenzy and anger emotions turned to ritualistic healing.There can be no doubt that these feelings of race-based anger contributed to the murder. When asked, Uncle Billy admits that he killed Beau out of a longing for avengeWhat they did my boy. The way they b squander him. They beat him till they beat him crazy and we had to send him to Jackson (the body politic mental facility). He dont even know me and his florists chrysanthemum no much. We take him candy, we take him cake, he eat it like a hog eating corn.The ritual-based and initiation based th eme of the novel is meant to change the violence of the murder into a healing process,where each of the novels narrators confesses their anger and need for revenge and then each learns something through the experience of participating later on-the-fact in a murder that only a single man committed.Later, for example, Gable reveals his son is killed for the false accusation for irreverence on a blank woman and Coot dialogue about his war experiences.The man who could break horses, Yank, relishes his role without at first realizing it makes him subservient to whites. But there is also a shadow of surroundal cognizance tied to the ritual murder that the renewal of black masculinity is directly tied to the renewal of nature.Johnny capital of Minnesota explains the murder on behalf of the flowers Thats why I kilt him, thats why.To protect them little flowers. But they aint here no more. And how come? (Gathering, 92). Gaines intention is to tie subjective several(prenominal) renewa l with the renewal of both confederacy and environment and he portrays the murder an consequent ruse in symbolically charged terms.Killing Beau might speed the river That river. Where the people went all these years. Where they fished, where they washed they clothes, where they was baptized. St. Charles River. Done gived us food, done cleaned us clothes, done cleaned us soul. St. Charles River no more, though. No more.They took it. (Gathering, 107). Because the novel relies on complex themes, it is grave to assume that racial issues are any more dominant than issues of community preservation and environmental preservation.The come across theme in the novel, as m,mentioned, is the reviving of masculinity the renewal of masculine energy which is seen to extend beyond race and into the elements of the earth and nature themselves.Mathus discovery of his community is the most starkly profoundly as pictured in A Gathering of Old workforce. When he says I been changed.I been changed . Not by that white mans God. I dont believe in that white mans God. I been changed by yall.Rooster, Clabber, Dirty Red, Coot you changed this hardhearted old man. (Gathering, 182 ) he as admitting that even his previous contempt and mistrust of white people has been challenged by his new-found notions of community.While it is relatively easy to dishonor the racial themes of A Gathering of Old work force the communal themes and the themes of renewal through nature may be a bit more grueling for the casual reader to understand.When the various themes of the novel are begun to be regarded as a whole, the picture which emerges is not a picture of black anger of African American bitterness or even of racism or classicism, but issues of humanism.The reclaiming of masculinity by the men in the novel can be regarded, symbolically, as the renewal of any person or any group which seeks to finally reaffirm its power after a period, perhaps even a lengthy period, of suppression and duress .Rather than portray this accumulated anger and bitterness as exploding in, say, a violent if even localised revolution, Gaines views the kind of fusion of bitterness, anger, and resentment, to a call to knowingness of and an identification and re-claiming of communal ties and environmental sense.Taken this way, the subjective stories presented by the various narrators of A Gathering of Old Men can be seen to transform into universal voices of awareness, and releasing change.This transformation is heralded by community and the sackful of private anger and private experience as culturally accepted, in fat culturally imperious information.The novels experimental narrative techniques weld the ancient unwritten tradition of tribal cultures with the scathingly sharp awareness of modern political and psychological realities.