A Gathering Of Old Men

Ernest J. Gaines impudent, A Gathering of aged(prenominal) Men employs experimental narrative techniques in sanctify to probe cornerstones of racism and classicism, as well as to examine the nature of storytelling in humanitys past and also for humanitys future.By employing no less than fifteen separate narrators in this overbold, Gaines is able to penetrate deeply into the inbred experiences of a a number of men together whom comprise a social microcosm of African American fib and experience.Through the diverse range of voices at his disposal, Gaines probes a wide range 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-diversity adn unity-through-intimacy.A careful reading of the novel reveals the deep motivations of its characters, each of which reveals the novels 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 are a direct participant in the action, as though reading the novel is an initiation rite of sorts.The novels central intrigue the rack up of Beau Baton, also forwards the initiation or ritualistic them the novel is meant to show the growth (or initiation) not only of chronologically grown men into huge delayed manhood, but to redefine standards of black masculinity altogether 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 role. Gaines signals that the unfolding of horizontalts is meant to have this mythic, ritualistic overtone when the old men gathering proclaim that things seem new again, that they feel wakeless about what they are doing.Wallace sees the water of the river as if it were still a mystery, while Mat admits that he is happy that they and all the rest are doing something different, for the first condemnation ( Gathering, 40).There is also the symbolic/ritualistic firing of guns, urged by Clatoo who tells the men Let them down there hear you ( Gathering, 48) and contrasted with the brutality of combined experience among the novels protagonists, this symbolic gunfire demonstrates controlled violence and evoke 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 proclivity for revengeWhat they did my boy. The way they beat him. They beat him till they beat him crazy and we had to send him to Jackson (the state mental facility). He dont even cope me and his mama no more. We take him candy, we take him cake, he eat it like a hog eating corn.The ritual-based and initiation based theme of the novel is meant to transform 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 after-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 rape on a white womanhood and Coot talks 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 environmental awareness tied to the ritual murder that the renewal of black masculinity is directly tied to the renewal of nature.Johnny Paul 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 individual renewal with the renewal of both partnership and environment and he portrays the murder an consequent ruse in symbolically charged terms.Killing Beau migh t revive 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. through with(p) 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 dangerous to assume that racial issues are both more dominant than issues of community preservation and environmental preservation.The key theme in the novel, as m,mentioned, is the reviving of masculinity the renewal of masculine energy which is seen to lean beyond race and into the elements of the earth and nature themselves.Mathus discovery of his community is the most starkly profoundly as portrayed in A Gathering of hoar Men. 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 h ardhearted 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 spot the racial themes of A Gathering of Old Men the communal themes and the themes of renewal through nature may be a bit more difficult 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 protracted period, of suppression and duress.Rather than portray this accumulated anger and resentment as exploding in, say, a violent if even localized revolution, Gaines views the kind of fusion o f bitterness, anger, and resentment, to a call to awareness of and an identification and re-claiming of communal ties and environmental awareness.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 cathartic change.This transformation is heralded by community and the liberation of private anger and private experience as culturally accepted, in fat culturally imperative information.The novels experimental narrative techniques weld the quaint oral tradition of tribal cultures with the scathingly sharp awareness of modern political and psychological realities.