James, who begins the story as a boy more conscious of his feelings and inner life than of the world in which he lives, moves far along the path toward understanding the moral complexity. 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. Themes 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.. Edited by Eugene Current-Garca and Bert Hitchcock. She was preparing him to take care of himself in case she had to go away like his father did. Gates, Henry L, and Nellie Y. McKay. I havent anything. Each of the first two stories in Ernest J. Gainess BloodlineA Long Day in November and The Sky Is Gray describes a black boy or youth attempting to come to terms not just with the world in which he lives, his parents problems, and the racism which circumscribes him but, more importantly, with the sensory orientation of his own body, the struggle between what William Faulkner called a black blood and white blood. It is this private or internal struggle more than any public or external debate that creates the real identity crisis for the young black and for the artist or writer who would contend with an America which has painted the senses white! Both Sonny in A Long Day in November and James in The Sky Is Gray have to resolve the conflict between their African/aural roots and their American/visual reorientationbetween James Baldwins declaration that it is only in his music . If ones analysis of this scene stops here in attempting to understand this odd end point for the story, the reading which suggests itself is quite straightforward, something like, external appearance is essential because Jamess person will always be identified and understood first by his external blackness, then, perhaps, if he is lucky, by his innate character by the world in which he lives, a world in which the white gaze is the most significant threat a black man faces. This reading is reinforced by other stations in the text, and indeed, most critics have read James and Octavia as Ive suggested. I went for a walk on a winter's day. The dramatic conflict endemic to the stories in Bloodline arises out of the efforts of various characters to reconcile their individual needs with community prerequisites. In thematic terms, two of the most important sections in the storysections seven and eightexplore the relationship between God, religion, knowledge, and ignorance. But the counter to this argument is that one should, if Gaines is successful, be able to see how James will turn out, that the creation of a characterization sufficient to demonstrate that the child is father of the man is a demonstration of a naturalism like Zolas, and worthy of similar respect. The title of the story by Ernest Gaines is ironic. But the conflict goes much deeper than that. The Sky is Gray is told in the first person by an eight-year-old child, James, on the cusp of youth, and describes a half-day in Jamess life. Jamess mother opens the door to exit, but turns and asks for twenty-five cents worth of salt meat. 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. A poor African American boy and his mother experience both discrimination and kindness during a trip to town to see the dentist. Twenty-five for me to go, twenty-five for him. 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. I was very much impressed, not only with form, but with how [the Russians] used their peasantry, how they used their serfs.. "The Sky is Gray" should be a required literary experience for both adults and students who share Louisiana's educational complexity. 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. 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. Eventually they are stopped by an old white lady named Helena who has watched them each time they passed by. And since his stories are set in the past, his African-American characters appear subservient and are not placed in the revolutionary poses favored by some of Gainess contemporaries such as James Baldwin, Ishmael Reed, John O. Killins, John Wideman, or David Bradley., In sum, while Gaines may not have had the wide recognition of other African-American writers early in his career, there is a broad critical consensus that he is an important writer, a good writer, and a writer who has perhaps been undervalued and may continue to gain increasing recognition in the years to come, in part because he was somewhat overshadowed by his contemporaries during his early years, in part because of the increasing importance of studies of masculinity in the literary canon. In The Sky is Gray, by Ernest J. Gaines and Mr. Parker, by Laurie Colwin, James and Janie are no exception. It is important to recall that the Civil Rights era coincided with the casting off of imperial control by a series of African countries. In this case, consciousness raising of blacks should not lead to an alienation from the community as it has for the student and Octavia; it should provide the basis for bettering the community. He just reads in his book. 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. With all of these facets, why would Gaines end the story with this quest unfinished? The narrator is James, an eight-year-old black boy living in rural Louisiana. Kept completely offstage except for his terrifying effect on Little John Lee, who screams bloody murder on receipt of his dental ministrations, Dr. Basset exists in the narrative not for what he is, but for what he isntDr. Although her relationship with this absent husband is only briefly mentioned, one senses in her attitude and behavior that his departure left her vulnerable. 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. Genre: . This did not go unnoticed in the United States, particularly among black leaders who read with interest books like Jomo Kenyattas Facing Mount Kenya. James has an advantage over the young man, however: The young man has lost both his parents, whereas James has a mother who teaches him the qualities of manliness, courage, self-confidence, integrity, and self-respect. Look up the phrase rite of passage. Does Jamess situation fit the definition? It is also clear that race, racial injustice, the years of segregation, and the particular way these things play themselves out in rural Louisiana are central to Gainess writing and therefore are central to understanding his works. A woman tries to engage Jamess mother in conversation, but a man James takes to be a preacher joins in instead. My baby don't love me no more. Awesome read. The sky is Gray. The story portraits three remarkable points: James's forced mature, his childhood memory damaged by poverty, but even so, their dignity still remains. 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. The feeling of community which permeates A Long Day in Novemberthat sense that whatever happens to Amy and Eddie is everybodys concernis conspicuously absent from the second story in Bloodline, The Sky Is Gray. James, the eight-year-old narrator of this story, struggles to understand his mother and her conceptions of manhood and dignity without aid from the community. two young boys, the resolution of the conflict resides with their parents. 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. Bloodline, his collection of short stories published in 1968, is a work that includes some of his best known short fiction, "The Sky Is Gray," "Just Like a Tree," and "A Long Day in November" (also published as a children's book in 1971). 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. The unrelenting cold and hunger he experiences throughout the story stay with me so many years later. 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 . The drawback to what Ill call, for lack of a better term, race-based readings may not be immediately obvious, but isnt terribly complicated. 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. 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. It is also possible to rent "The Sky Is Gray" on Vudu, Amazon Video online and to download it on Amazon Video, Vudu. As they ride in the back of the bus reserved for blacks and walk the streets of . 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. The action in "The Sky is Gray" is broken up into thirteen short sections which describe a half day or so in the life of James, an eight-year-old black boy in the rural South of the late 1930s. The boy dont answer her no more. What this suggests is that in the highly polarized world in which James is growing up, external appearance can be more significant that internal realityafter all, whether Jamess collar is up or down, hes clearly not a bum, but a boy, and even a man can be permitted, under conditions as cold as those James and Octavia find themselves in, to pull his collar up around his throat. In short, the unfortunate consequence of exclusively race-based readings is that they narrow the readers scope of inquiry, inviting the reader to ask fewer questions and questions of a more particular nature than one would ask of an author like James Joyce, Salman Rushdie, or J. M. Coetzeeeach of whose writings are intimately concerned with different conceptions of race and their ramifications. Figuratively, it is a metaphor of the collective black experience.. Human existence does not lend itself to such neat categorizing. James is sympathetic without being an object of sympathy; the reader feels his cold, his confusion, his hunger directly, authentically, without the intrusion of another character or narrators impressions or observations. This is neither a subjective nor an unimportant question. XIX, No. The source of Jamess isolation is his mother Octavia, who moves through the world of the story with a calm and control which always seem on the verge of eruption. 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